
The Riley Youth at Fourteen 
Pencil drawing by himself 



THE YOUTH OF 
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Fortune's way with the Poet from 
Infancy to Manhood 



By 
MARCUS DICKEY 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS PAINTED 
UNDER THE POET'S DIRECTION 

By WILL VAWTER 

AND REPRODUCTIONS OF PHOTOGRAPHS, 

DAGUERREOTYPES, LETTERS AND 

RARE DOCUMENTS 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1919 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



V 



Printed in the United States of America 



OCT 10 1919 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 



I 
£ 



©CU536119 



Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, 

Turn thy wild wheel 

Through sunshine, storm and cloud; 

Smile and we smile, 

The lords of many lands; 

Frown and we smile, 

The lords of our own liands; 

For man is man, 

And master of his fate. 

— Alfred Tennyson". 



FOREWORD 

When Cromwell sat to Sir Peter Leley, he said, "I desire 
you will use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, 
and not natter me at all; but remark all those roughnesses, 
pimples, warts, and everything as you see me." 

This famous injunction Eiley quoted to a reporter who 
sought his opinion on biography. The poet had read it, for 
the first time, when a youth, in the preface to a rare and much 
loved set of old books entitled British Painters and Sculptors. 
To a writer who came to him for a sketch of his life, he 
said, "Don't take sides with conflicting opinions about me; 
don't strive to write me up or down ; tell the facts." He went 
on to talk of Boswell. "They have called him a conceited 
fool," said he, "but he was of as much benefit to literature as 
Johnson himself. He put things down as they were, and for 
once we have the charming chronicle of a life without the 
weakness of apology." 

To the author of this volume, the poet said: "There is a 
Chemistry in Nature that is making the worst good and the 
best better. To this end a biographer may give scars the 
treatment distance gives them in the landscape; he may 
soften or spiritualize them — but never ignore them." In a 
word, the golden rule was this : speah the truth in love. 

Evidently the above observations suggest a sympathetic, 
lovable book; but it is one thing to receive suggestions, an- 
other and altogether different thing to carry them out. The 
author does not claim to have done this, but he does claim 
while doing his work to have had the poet's ideals uppermost 
in mind. By breaking away, to some extent, from "the dull 



FOREWORD 

order of chronology" and by the liberal use of anecdote, he 
hopes the narrative has gained in variety and interest. In 
ways incalculable he is indebted to others, and chiefly to the 
poet, who made numerous corrections in the records and cor- 
dially approved all efforts to arrive at the truth through them. 
To all who have thus generously assisted him, the gratitude 
of the author is given without reservation. 

The poet's life, as he saw it, was divided into two periods : 
Youth and Maturity — the latter carrying with it the idea of 
wrestling with and solving manhood's problems — the former 
roughly covering the first thirty years of his life, but often 
mantling with its fervor the period far beyond. Youth was 
the spring and summer of his fortunes ; Maturity the autumn 
and winter. Age was unnecessary. "Youth," he was wont 
to repeat, "is the mainspring of the world." If he could be 
enrolled among the Eternal Boys, that was fame enough. 

Out of college halls, city workshops, and wayside cottages, 
have come hosts of Riley readers who have thought and who 
still think of him as a living friend because he sang of living 
things. Recalling the tribute of their love, the author can 
not conceal the lively hope that this chronicle of their friend 
by their friend may find a genial corner in their good opinions. 

The Author. 
Heart of the Highlands, 
Nashville, Indiana, 
June, 1919. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I A Glimpse of the Early Days .... 1 

II The Ehyme of Childhood 19 

III Salad Days — A Crisis — and a Trade . . 48 

IV The Argonaut Among Old Books ... 84 
V Over the Hills and Far Away . . . . 105 

VI With the Graphic Company 132 

VII While the Musician Played 158 

VIII Attorney at Law 181 

-IX With the Wizard Oil Company .... 193 

- X Scribbling in Grub Street . . . . . 216 

" XI The Strange Young Man ...... 235 

' XII In the Dark 252 

"XIII Vision of His Mission 271 

XIV The Golden Girl 283 

XV Light and Counsel from the Wise . . 312 

XVI On the Tripod of the Democrat .... 331 

XVII The Literary Torpedo 359 

XVIII Weathering the Storm 401 

Index 419 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Eiley Youth at Fourteen .... Frontispiece - 
The Poet's Mother, About 1860 . . . Facing page 12 

His First Schoolhouse " 13 

Log Cabin on the National Road Where 

the Poet Was Born "34 

Eiley Homestead in Greenfield, 1856 . " 35 

The Poet's Handwriting the Year of 

His Vision " "60 

His Handwriting Twenty Years Later " " 60 
The Poet's Penmanship in His School- 
days " "61 

The Poet's Father, Captain Eeuben A. 

Eiley " "94 

Old Shoe-Shop " "95 

The Mother's Girlhood Home on the 

Mississinewa " "120 

Standard Eemedy Trade-Mark ... " " 121 
"Logan's" Speech to the Fishermen . " " 146 
Graphic Company Business Card . . " " 147 
Eiley & McClanahan Business Card . " " 147 
James Wiiitcomb Eiley — Age Twenty- 
two " "178 

Ole Bull, the Master Musician ... " " 179 

The Wizard Oil Company . . . . . " " 212 

Donald Grant Mitchell " " 213 

The Sign on the Country Barn ... " " 248 ' 

New Yore Store Sign at Anderson , , « « 349 



LIST OF ILLUSTBATIONS— Continued 



Facsimile Letter Feom Hearth and 

Home Facing 

Heading of Hearth and Home . . 
"That Sign in the Post Office" . . 

Her Beautiful Hand 

When the Poet Was Twenty-five . 
The Second Letter from Longfellow 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . . 
John Townsend Trowbridge . . . 
Anderson Democrat Office . . . 
Old Cottage on Bolivar Street . . 
The Poet at the Age of Twenty-eight 
Old County Court House .,.-.». 



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THE YOUTH OF 
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



The Youth of 
James Whitcomb Riley 

CHAPTER I 

A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 

IT WAS the tide of migration; what the Red Man 
called the White Man's Flood — youth, commerce 
and trade, visions of wealth, the arts, sowing and 
reaping, faith, hope and love, following the Great 
Western Pioneer, the sun. Rising from the shores of 
the British Isles and the continent of Europe, it crossed 
the Atlantic and fringed the seaboard of a new world 
with cities and farms. It ascended the eastern slopes 
of the mountains, poured through the gates of the Blue 
Ridge and the Alleghanies, and swept through the 
forests and over the prairies of the Ohio Valley. 

What was its character ? Who were the emigrants ? 
They were not one people, not a family of single 
extraction from one motherland. They were French- 
men and Englishmen, Dutch, Irish, and Scotch- 
men, descendants of Puritans and cavaliers, gen- 
tlemen from Virginia, artisans from Pennsylvania 
and students from New England. There were 
woodmen, sturdy swains, and delvers with the spade; 
pedestrians, riders, and revelers — and felons, not mul- 
titudes of them such as the motherland once sent to 
Australia, but a sufficient number to be an important 

1 



2 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

factor in the structure of states. There were soldiers 
ever ready to hurry to the charge, and orators who 
swayed the multitude with impassioned speech. There 
came also musicians. In the new land as in the 
old, the four essentials were food, clothing, shelter and 
recreation. Over the mountains "with the cooking 
pots and pails" came the fiddle and banjo. There were 
the forefathers of sculptors and painters, and 

"Of poets pacing to and fro, 
Murmuring their sounding lines" ; 

particularly the ancestors of a poet of simple life, 
the central figure in the succeeding chapters of this 
volume. It was a race of men with their backs turned 
upon the sea, "civilization frayed at the edges," a 
master historian has said, "taken forward in rough 
and ready fashion, with a song and a swagger, by 
woodsmen and drovers, with axes and whips and rifles 
in their hands." Hundreds among the thousands who 
came were disappointed. Many returned, but the large 
majority remained, "built cabins, planted crops, culti- 
vated farms, founded towns and cities, and established 
a new empire." 

Of the land to which they came it may be said that 
in expanse and grandeur it surpassed all other won- 
derlands of the temperate zone. The Forest of Arden 
in which the imagination of Shakespeare reveled was 
a brushwood in comparison. Such mammoth trees the 
eye of man had seldom seen. It was a rich land. 
Daniel Boone, looking out over it, was "richer than 
the owners of cattle on a thousand hills." But its 
wealth could not be measured by the hunter's eye. It 
was a primeval region many hundred leagues in cir- 
cumference. From east to west it equaled the distance 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 3 

traversed by Stanley in his march to the Mountains of 
the Moon. But how great the contrast. The Stanley 
region was in the darkest corner of the earth, brood- 
ing under the eternal storm-clouds of the equator. The 
masses of forest vegetation suggested mystery and awe. 
Not so the American woods. As the African explorer 
said of them, "There was poetic seclusion, graceful dis- 
order, bits of picturesque skies, and the sun shedding 
softened streams of light on scenes of exhaustless 
beauty and wonder." The scenes were vocal with the 
songs of streams and birds. Breezes whispered their 
gentle mysteries to the trees, and mighty winds made 
music in the forest like 

"The roar of Ocean on his winding shore." 

It was a midway region, exempt alike from the se- 
verity of the Canadian winters and the enervating 
summer heat of the Gulf coast. The kingdom of nature 
— the seasons, morning, noon, evening, and the silence 
of night — surpassed the splendors of the Orient; and 
when Indian summer came to fold the land in sym- 
pathetic sleep, there came with it a vision of per- 
fection that rivaled dreams of the Golden Age. 
"The world of childhood," wrote William Dean 
Howells, whose boyhood was a part of it, "the child- 
hood of that vanished West, which lay between the 
Ohio and the Mississippi, and was, unless memory 
abuses my fondness, the happiest land that ever there 
was under the sun." 

In such a land it was less difficult for men and 
women to order their lives on a comprehensive scale, 
and they began to do that. Their dreams and deeds, 
in part, corresponded to their surroundings. They 
loved youth. "They lived freely with powerful unedu- 



4 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

cated persons. They loved the earth, the sun and the 
animals; despised riches, hated tyrants, and took off 
their hats to no man nor any number of men." They 
were transformed by the rough fortunes of the fron- 
tier, and in the passing of the years a poet was born to 
celebrate the transformation — a poet of the people with 
poems, said Mark Twain, "as sweet and genuine as 
any that his friends, the birds and bees, make about 
his other friends, the woods and flowers." 

There was another side to the picture of the West, 
the West as seen one lovely April by Charles Dickens, 
then a young novelist of thirty, who came down the 
Ohio River in a steamboat and hurried through the re- 
gion from Cincinnati to Lake Erie, in a stage-coach. 
Ohio and Indiana were in the making; Cincinnati, 
lying in its amphitheater of hills, commended itself to 
the novelist favorably and pleasantly. The way out of 
the city led through a beautiful, cultivated country 
rich in the promise of an abundant harvest. Soon 
however the scene changed. Roadside inns were dull 
and silent. There were the primitive worm-fence, the 
unseemly sight of squalid huts, wretched cabins, 
broken-down wagons, and shambling, low-roofed cow- 
sheds. Villagers stared idly at the passengers and 
sent up a silly shout when the coach bumped against 
the stumps in the street. Loafers lounged around the 
country stores, the climate was pernicious and every- 
where were signs of ill health and depression. 

Beyond were miles upon miles of forest solitudes 
"unbroken by any sign of human life or any trace of 
human footsteps" — then to come suddenly upon a 
clearing with black stumps strewn about the field, to 
find settlers burning down the trees, the charred and 
blackened giants of the wood lying like so many "mur- 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 5 

dered creatures" on the earth — it was a scene to excite 
the traveler's compassion. His mind reverted to a 
former age when mighty forest trees spread their roof 
over a land enchanted, an aboriginal age when men 
lived pleasantly in blessed ignorance of the destruction 
and miseries of the White Man's Flood. 

That branch of the tide of migration which Dickens 
saw lacked diversity of character. The emigrants 
were hollow-cheeked and pale, silent, joyless and un- 
social. The women were drowsy; the men seemed 
"melancholy ghosts of departed bookkeepers." Had 
he left the stage-coach and lived for a space with 
the settlers, had he gone with them to husking- 
bees, barn-raisings and log-rollings, he would have 
found robust constitutions and an abundance of joy and 
laughter. Among those who lived on corn bread, boiled 
ham and cabbage, he would have found many who saw 
the beauty in the rainbow, in the thunder-storm and 
the sunset. And gratitude for literature he would 
have found also. John Hay relates that early settlers 
in Kentucky saddled their horses and rode from neigh- 
boring counties to the principal post-town whenever a 
new Waverley novel was expected. Among the old 
books scattered here and there in the log cabins of In- 
diana and Ohio, Dickens would have found a new one, 
Master Humphrey's Clock, which then contained the 
story of Little Nell, whose life found an echo in the 
brief histories of domestic joys and sorrows of the 
frontier. Among those who idolized this heroine of 
fiction was Elizabeth Marine, who a few years later 
became the mother of a child of song whose mission 
was to make glad the people with poetry wrought from 
the very things that had filled the heart of Dickens 
with discontent. As the south wind warms winter 



6 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

into spring, as the sun turns the sod to violets, so was 
this child of song to transmute the homeliness of those 
early days into beauty. Things were unsightly when the 
novelist passed. There was to be loveliness and har- 
mony when the singer came. 

It was a desire of Sir Walter Scott to stand in the 
midst of a wild original American forest "with the 
idea of hundreds of miles of untrodden forest around 
him," in the vast region stretching westward from the 
Alleghanies, for example. Such was the good fortune 
of those families who first settled in the woods of Ran- 
dolph County, Indiana. Geographically they were in 
the very heart of the region. Leading back from those 
settlements, as indeed from settlements in every 
county, were threads of genealogy, which, if not para- 
mount in importance, nevertheless gave color to sub- 
sequent life. They played a part in the youth of the 
nation. History does not omit them from those days 
of hope and discovery. They belong to "the great 
story of men." One of those threads led back to Bed- 
ford, Pennsylvania, where Reuben Alexander Riley, 
father of the poet, was born in the year 1819. 

"I know when my father was born, at any rate," 
once remarked the poet, crowing over the one date in 
history he could remember. 

"When?" he was asked. 

"The year Queen Victoria was born." 

"And what year was that?" 

"I don't know." 

Reuben Riley was the fifth in a family of fourteen 
children. His father, Andrew Riley, and his mother, 
Margaret (Sleek) Riley, were born and reared in 
Pennsylvania. "My grandfather Riley," said Reuben, 



I 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 7 

"was an Irishman and my grandfather Sleek, a Ger- 
man. Both grandmothers were English." 

In 1825 Andrew Riley moved with his family to west- 
ern Ohio, and a few years later across the Indiana line 
to a knoll on Stony Creek, Randolph County, where he 
built a log cabin near a cluster of giant trees known as 
the "sugar orchard." On the way from Pennsylvania, 
a distance of four hundred miles, the family experi- 
enced many hardships. The father had sold all his 
belongings for thirty dollars — except a horse, a "carry- 
all" and some clothing. He and the older sons walked 
while the mother drove the wagon and cared for the 
youngsters. They lived in the open, building camp-fires 
in the woods at night. Through the foothills of the 
Alleghanies, their food was chiefly chestnuts and gin- 
gerbread. In Ohio they had such luxuries as Indian 
corn, apples and sweet potatoes. 

After reaching the woods of Indiana, so tradition 
says, "they lived on the fat of the land." There were 
grains, venison, squirrels and plenty of vegetables. 
There were wild animals to trap and wild turkeys to 
shoot; red deer came to Stony Creek daily and black 
bear were abundant. 

Andrew Riley, certainly, had enough and to spare. 
One season when there was a scarcity of grain, desti- 
tute Miami Indians came to him and he loaded their 
ponies with corn. Another year, a stockman insisted 
on buying all the corn he had at seventy-five cents a 
bushel. The offer was refused. "My neighbors need 
it," said he, "for seed and bread." He sold to them for 
twenty-five cents a bushel. 

Such a man was naturally happy in his declining 
years, and, above all, at peace with himself and the 



8 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

world. A few days before he died, he said, "I have 
never intentionally wronged any man. I have not been 
vulgar or profane. I have tried to do right. I do not 
fear to die." 

Another line of genealogy led back to Rockingham, 
North Carolina, where Elizabeth (Marine) Riley, 
mother of the poet, was born in 1823. She was the 
tenth in a family of eleven children. Her father, 
John Marine, and her mother, Fanny (Jones) Marine, 
were reared in the South. Her family lineage, on 
the paternal side, could be traced back to the 
year 1665. Her grandfather Marine was born in Wales, 
being a descendant of the French Huguenots, "those 
refugees that brought art and the refinements of civili- 
zation wherever they came." His wife was a perse- 
cuted Quaker from England. On coming to America 
they first settled among the Indians in Maryland, but 
later sought the warmer climate of the Carolinas. In 
1825, having lost his little fortune by speculating in 
weaver-sleighs, John Marine moved with his family to 
Indiana, crossing the Ohio River at North Bend. 
Among the incidents of the journey was the halt for a 
few days on the Ohio, and the joy at finding the new 
country all agog over the visit of the Great Lafayette. 
For years the story was a favorite in the Marine 
family, how the friend of Washington had ascended the 
river, and after spending a day with Henry Clay under 
the great trees at Ashland, had come to be the guest of 
the Queen City, his emotions when he beheld the fron- 
tier host on the hills of a city that two score years be- 
fore was but a cluster of log huts by the river; how 
the Stars and Stripes rippled from steamboats and 
buildings, and the applause echoed from both shores 
while the venerable hero was conveyed across the river 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 9 

in a barge, how the alleys and commons were blockaded 
with ox teams and country wagons, how it had rained 
in torrents for a week, and how the artillery splashed 
through the muddy streets — a big story it was of pa- 
triotism in the backwoods, and the Marines were radi- 
ant with it when they reached Indiana. 

After a transient residence at New Garden and one 
or two other points in Wayne County, they settled 
permanently on the Mississinewa River in Randolph 
County, where they built a cabin on a high bank at a 
bend in the river a few miles below Ridgeville. To 
the south was a white oak grove, a favorite retreat for 
Elizabeth Marine. "She often went there," said her 
brother James, "to commune with the big oak." Thus 
the moral influence of nature began to sink into her 
soul. 

The Marines were flat-boat builders, millers, and 
verse-makers. About the first thing they did on reach- 
ing a new country was to establish a mill site and 
write a poetic narrative of their wanderings. "John 
Marine," so said his gifted grandson, "wrote his auto- 
biography in rhyme. He would sit by the fireplace and 
write heavy turbid poetry on scientific and Biblical 
subjects. The tendency was to the epic." He laid out 
the town of Rockingham on the Mississinewa and ad- 
vertised the lots in rhyme. The town, according to an 
old record, had so small a growth and so early a death, 
that settlers of a later period could not find the faint- 
est trace of its location. All that now remains on 
the site are a few unmarked graves in the far corner 
of a cow pasture, among them the grave of Elizabeth 
Marine's mother. 

John Marine was not only a boat-builder and rhymer, 
but a teacher and preacher as well. He preached to 



10 JAMES WHXTCOMB RILEY 

neighbors in his cabin on Sunday. He wrote a book 
advocating the union of the churches — a suicidal thing 
to do in his day — which in part is said to have been in 
rhyme. The manuscript was kept many years in a 
trunk, but "one winter," to quote his grandson again, 
"six mice reduced it to confetti. On the first ballot the 
jury was divided, but at last the vote was unanimous 
for destruction/' 

As a preacher John Marine had more than a local 
reputation. He" and the poet's grandmother, Margaret 
Riley, were leaders in the Methodist camp-meetings of 
Randolph and Delaware Counties. There were no wan- 
dering eyes when they addressed the meetings, particu- 
larly when the latter spoke. 

"Elizabeth Marine," said William A. Thornburg, an 
old resident of Randolph County, "was remarkably 
pure-minded. I never saw any one so beautiful in a 
calico dress. She belonged to a large family. They 
lived in a one-story log house. It had a clay and stick 
chimney. She went to school, but her chief delight 
was to play along streams and wander in the green 
woods. She was always seeing things among the 
leaves." 

Except that her eyes were blue instead of brown, 
Longfellow might have chosen Elizabeth Marine for 
his portrait in "Maidenhood." Her nature was poetic. 
One of her girlhood friends remembered her ascending 
Muncie hill on the Mississinewa to get a view of clear- 
ings in the valley, and how happy she was at the sight 
of the blue smoke curling up from cabins in the morn- 
ing air. The friend added that "she adored her garden 
and the cultivation of small fruits. When she stood 
in the hollyhocks she seemed to be in a trance." She 
loved to listen to the sound of woodchoppers, and the 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 11 

crunch of wagons dragged wearily by oxen along the 
road. At dusk sweet to her was 

"The clinking of bells on the air 
Of the cows coming home from the wood." 

The scenery that was uninteresting to Dickens was 
fair and comely to her. She saw the "orange in the eve- 
ning sky." Bright colored birds were "flying flowers." 
Peering through the trees she caught the glimpse of 
Pan although it was not her gift to adorn the scene 
with the vines of verse as did her illustrious son. 

Pomona would have envied this maiden of the Missis- 
sinewa her enjoyment of the wild orchards of that 
period. To listen to "Johnny Appleseed," the eccen- 
tric wanderer who planted them, was one of her 
happy opportunities. She remembered his telling of 
his first visit to the Indiana forest, how he had brought 
a sack of apple seeds on the back of an ox. His narra- 
tive pleased her because it was novel. His peculiarities 
were captivating — like a bird he was, roosting where 
night overtook him — always wearing ragged clothes — 
never carrying a gun — never sleeping in a bed — never 
having any place he called home, yet always happy, 

"While he was walking by day or lying at night in the 
forest, 
Looking up at the trees, and the constellations beyond 
them." 

She recalled that he was a Swedenborgian, and how 
deeply she was impressed with his belief that "grow- 
ing old in Heaven is growing young." James Marine, 
her brother, long afterward said that this was his 
sister's vision of Heaven as long as she lived. 

Among the influences that came through the moun- 
tain passes with the tide of migration, was the breath 



12 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

of love — love, as the poet has said, fresh with the youth 
of the world, old and yet ever new, and always beau- 
tiful. "We had to reckon with it on all occasions," said 
a county pioneer; "it swayed young hearts at picnics 
and camp-meetings as the breeze swayed the green 
tree-tops." In a settlement on Cabin Creek (to which 
point the Marines had come after Elizabeth's mother 
had died and the home had been broken up on the 
Mississinewa) was a slender young woman twenty 
years old, lovely as the maiden of Plymouth, and like 
her, too, in that she was familiar with the hum of the 
spinning-wheel. Over in the Stony Creek settlement 
was a young man twenty-four years old. He was lithe, 
straight and tall, had black eyes, black hair and a 
radiant face. He was known for his eloquence in de- 
bating clubs, had taught school, studied law in a neigh- 
boring county-seat, been admitted to the bar, and had 
had a limited practice in a prairie village in Iowa. 

"Now it happens in this country," said Abraham 
Lincoln, "that, for some reason or other, we meet once 
every year, somewhere about the Fourth of July. 
These Fourth of July gatherings, I suppose, have 
their uses." Indeed, they do, and quite the first 
of the uses of the Fourth of July gathering in Neeley's 
Woods, near the village of Windsor, Randolph County, 
1843, was that Reuben A. Riley might meet Elizabeth 
Marine and fall a victim to her beauty. It was a day 
for family reunions — a barbacue day, the "roast" con- 
sisting of several pigs, an ox, and five lambs. Stony 
Creek laughed through the wood, and there, too, played 
those other streams, "the life-currents that ebb and 
flow in human hearts." There was the confusion of 
wagons, the "herd of country boys," babies tumbling 
on the ground, and men and maidens making merry. 




The Poet's Mother, About I860 







His First Schoolhouse 
The little Dame Trot dwelling of three rooms 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 13 

As the afternoon wore on, the rounds of pleasure 
continued, the last year's leaves were swept from a 
spot in the woods, and, to paraphrase Tennyson, 

"men and maids 

Arranged a country dance, and flew through light 
And shadow, while the twanging violin 
Struck up with Yankee Doodle, and lofty beech 
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end." 

Here Reuben Riley and Elizabeth Marine met for the 
first time — and their dancing feet went forward with 
the rest. "It was love at first sight," said James 
Marine. "I am an old man now and have seen many 
days of pleasure, but none like that one in Neeley's 
Woods. I think I never saw my sister dance so 
happily." 

As usual, Lincoln, the master interpreter of men 
and events, was right. A young lawyer came to that 
forest jubilee free as an eagle. He met a young woman 
he had not seen before, and left the woods that night 
a captive for life. Truly, "these Fourth of July gath- 
erings have their uses." 

Although the crowd assembled at the behest of Lib- 
erty, it did not march in procession with banners. A 
few flags hanging from the trees paid tribute to "the 
day we celebrate." There were no giant fire crackers, 
nor Roman candles, no pyrotechnic display except the 
flames from a log-heap and a few shell-bark hickory 
fires, which illumined the woods at nightfall. There 
were no fairy-balloons — but there were fairies, on the 
authority of James Marine and his friend William 
Thornburg, who remembered that Elizabeth pointed 
to them in the flickering shadows above her. 

"Love," according to the old saw, "keepeth its cap- 
tive awake all night." So Reuben Riley, after losing 



14 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

his heart that July day, had his repose sadly disturbed. 
There was an Indian pony trail some six miles long 
between Stony Creek and Cabin Creek, which he trav- 
eled frequently by the light of a lantern. Eagerly he 

"Followed the pathway that ran through the woods to 
the house of Priscilla, ,, 

but unlike John Alden he was not led thither by de- 
ceptive fancy. He went always on the errand of love. 
Love "was spinning his life and his fortune" and the 
life and fortune of a son of song. All thought of 
returning to the far-away town on the prairies for 
the practice of law came to an end. His reflections 
fashioned a home in Indiana. February 20, 1844, 
he and his sweetheart Elizabeth were married at 
Unionport on Cabin Creek — and thus the pony path 
was turned into a bridal path. 

For a time previous to her marriage, Elizabeth had 
lived with her brother at Unionport. "We made them 
a pretty wedding," said her sister-in-law. "Her brother 
Jonathan and Emily Hunt stood up with them. They 
looked nice. Her wedding dress was a pale pink silk. 
She wore a long white veil and white kid gloves and 
shoes. Her infair dress was gray poplin. She looked 
beautiful in her leghorn bonnet the next day when she 
rode away on horseback with Reuben through the 
woods." 

After the honeymoon, which in those days did not 
include a trip to the Mediterranean, the young hus- 
band brought his bride in July, 1844, to live in Green- 
field, a village of three hundred inhabitants, on Brandy- 
wine Creek, Hancock County, Indiana. It being the 
usual thing to do then, he moved into a log cabin — 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 15 

"Upon the main street and the main highway 
From East to West — historic in its day — v 
Known as the National Road." 

Greenfield was fifteen years old. Like the settle- 
ments in Randolph County, it was neighbor to the 
primeval forest. That forest had "multiplicity and 
richness of tinting," and there was no "sad poverty of 
variety in species" among the trees. "The county 
is heavily timbered," said an early record, "as largely 
covered with beech, sugar maple, oak, ash, elm, walnut, 
buckeye, and hickory as any county in the State." A 
report of a Mass Convention refers to settlers "emerg- 
ing from the beech woods around our peaceful village." 
The humorist smiles at the size of that Mass Conven- 
tion. It was held in a courtroom which was then the 
upper floor of a log house about twenty feet long. 

The population was sparse. There were tangled 
solitudes in the county that challenged the courage of 
the bravest immigrant. Roads were few and winding. 
Settlers consumed days in going to mill, although one 
is inclined to believe they did other things on the 
way, for one settler is said to have returned in his 
ox-cart with "four deer, a half dozen fox and wolf 
skins, and seven wild turkeys." Less than two score 
years before Reuben Riley came to Greenfield, the 
Delaware Indians were tramping up and down Brandy- 
wine, to and from their hunting grounds, then located 
in the wilderness, now known as Shelby and Bartholo- 
mew Counties. So far as the records show there was 
no poet in the tribe who 

"Heard the songs divine, 
Up and down old Brandywine." 

The young couple promptly took a prominent 



16 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

place in the life of the community; in its labors and 
its pleasures. Soon after their coming, the first 
newspaper was printed, the Greenfield Reveille, and 
the husband announced himself in its business directory 
as "Attorney at Law, Office at my residence." He was a 
favorite from the first, and there was a demand for his 
eloquence on public occasions. He took a lively interest 
in the national campaign, becoming a champion of 

"Polk and Annexation 

against 

The Bank and High Taxation." 

'His bride Elizabeth also was a favorite. She 
was the joy of the neighborhood, and there was 
a melody in her voice on moonlit evenings that 
those who heard could not forget. On public occa- 
sions she was remembered for "the bloom and grace 
of womanhood." Old residents recalled how beautiful 
she Idoked among friends on the front porch of the old 
National Hotel. They remembered her charming man- 
ners and how lovingly she waved her hand to her hus- 
band in a procession that passed by. She contributed 
verse to the weekly Reveille and later to the Greenfield 
Spectator and other county papers, among them The 
Family Friend and the American Patriot. What she 
wrote did not pass muster, but there was a poetic 
impulse in the heart, none the less. She was a link in 
the Marine genealogy, and as destiny designed,, the 
last in that succession of verse-makers, who, for a 
century or more, in their humble way, had foretold 
the coming of a poet, whose pen would one day trans- 
figure the simple beauty of simple things — and thereby 
make— 



A GLIMPSE OF THE EARLY DAYS 17 

"Rude popular traditions and old tales 
Shine as immortal poems." 

Once for all it may be said that Greenfield was no 
mean village. Notwithstanding the neighboring Black 
Swamp and the marsh lands on Brandywine, it had a 
charmingly romantic setting. Locust trees and sugar 
maple saplings stood irregularly along the sidewalks. 
Beech, ash and walnut, left standing when the ground 
was cleared, gave variety and shade to backyards and 
byways. The dwellings were cabins and frame cot- 
tages. The business rooms were for the most part 
one-story buildings, though an occasional two-story 
one gave promise of more pretentious blocks in days 
to come. 

As Reuben and Elizabeth Riley took their place in the 
community, so Greenfield took its place in "the great 
psalm of the republic." It was the gathering place for 
life currents from southern climes, and from the farm- 
lands and cities of the East. There were students with 
a record of things done under the elms at Yale, and 
neighbor to these, now and then, a squire of birth and 
distinction, who pointed with pride to his huge Carolina 
wagon and his four-horse team, which he had driven 
from his plantation on the Great Pedee. This blending 
of the East and South meant in the next generation "a 
peculiar people" — a population untrammelled by the 
artifice of fashion and formality. It meant independ- 
ence and simplicity of character. An acre of earth 
near Greenfield dilated with "the grandeur and life of 
the universe," as did an acre in the vicinity of Boston 
or Savannah. There was a school of experience, 
ample opportunity for diversity of endeavor. There 
were love, courtship and marriage, and devotion to 
home and country. The region grew robust men, and, 



18 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

none the less, mothers of large families, whose opinions 
on men and affairs compared favorably with the judg- 
ments of their husbands. There was a native fresh- 
ness that made even the illiterate interesting. Village 
statesmen talked profoundly of their country's possi- 
bilities and perils, and hunters and woodmen were not 
strangers to books or the calls of culture. 

"We had our dreary days," remarked an early set- 
tler, "but were not cast down. We were up with the 
lark and down with rheumatism but seldom beyond the 
reach of the lark's song." Nature nourished the poetic 
impulse, whatever the station in life, state of health, 
or degree of intelligence. 

A peaceful village surrounded by beech woods with 
a little "willow brook of rhymes" flowing through it, 
the beech woods a part of a primeval forest diversified 
with neighborhoods of men, women and children 
— all in all, as happy a land and time for the birth of 
a poet as "ever there was under the sun." 



CHAPTER II 

THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 

I HAVE no doubt that somewhere in the wilds of 
this western land the wind, whispering through 
the chinks of some log cabin, is ruffling the curls 
upon the brow of a future son of fame." 

Such were the words of an Indiana orator in a speech 
delivered in the forties of the last century. The proph- 
ecy was not made in vain. Several sons of fame were 
born in that decade, but the birth of one particularly 
concerns these pages. One day in October, 1849, a 
fortnight after that birth, Fortune singled out a run- 
away boy to find the cradle of future greatness. Hurry- 
ing away from discontentment at his home in Indian- 
apolis, the boy ran eastward along the old Plank 
Road. It was Sunday morning. The woods were 
yellowing and orchard boughs were bending with 
ripened fruit. When he grew hungry he filled his linen 
coat pockets with apples. Occasionally a farm wagon 
going to or from church gave him a lift and for a time 
he was accompanied by a stranger who listened suspi- 
ciously to the tale of his woes. 

The forenoon was long, the afternoon longer, but just 
as the sun was sinking behind the notorious Black 
Swamp the toll-gate burst upon the runaway's tired 
vision, and a few moments later he saw in the deepen- 
ing twilight the village of Greenfield, the end of his 
day's flight. At the edge of town he fell in with 
a boy who had been driving cows to pasture. The 
19 



20 JAMES WHITCOMB HILEY 

lad directed him to the home of one Reuben A. Riley — 
a young lawyer, thirty years of age, and a leading citi- 
zen of the little county-seat. 

"There the lawyer lives," said the boy as they entered 
Main Street, pointing to a little, unpainted, half-frame, 
half -log house in the southeast corner of its lot. At the 
gate the boys parted and soon a timid knock brought the 
lawyer to the door — and the runaway stood speechless 
in the presence of his brother. Not meeting in the stern 
dark eye of the lawyer the welcome he hoped for, the 
young brother covered his face with his hands and sat 
down on the door-step. At the same moment he heard 
the rustle of a dress and the voice of a gentle wife 
and mother. She stood for an instant, "saintly and 
sad as the twilight," and then led the boy through 
the front room to the kitchen — the frame structure at 
the rear of the cabin. 

Now that the runaway is in the arms of the mother, 
it is good to listen to his story in his own words — 
as it was told half a century later. "Within her 
arms," said he, "I had the feeling of utter security. 
She combed my hair and seated me on her knee. As 
the story of my running away proceeded, I looked up 
and there inside the kitchen door stood the swarthy 
form of the lawyer, his arms folded and his eyes bent 
severely upon us. Lifting her soft blue-gray eyes to 
his, with tears shining on their fringes like dew on 
the grass, she pled my cause. 'Let him stay and be a 
companion to our children/ said she. At this, the black 
eyes softened. Laying his hand on my head and look^ 
ing longingly into her face, he said, There, Lizzie, it is 
settled ; he can stay ; I will inform the folks to-morrow/ 

"Then came supper — and such a supper the Prodigal 
Son never feasted upon. Everything — pie, cake, pre- 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 21 

serves, milk and bread white as snow — and all the 
time the mother standing behind my chair, filling my 
plate as often as I could clear it. After supper we went 
to the front room. 'I have something pretty to show 
you/ she said ; 'something you have never seen/ Lead- 
ing me to an old-fashioned box cradle, near the window 
where the 'Queen of the Prairie' shed its fragrance on 
the night breeze, she gently lifted a snowy little cover 
and showed me the sleeping face of a babe. I stooped 
and kissed its dainty lips — and thus I entered a Child- 
World." 

The baby had been born Sunday morning, October 
7, 1849, and a week later christened James Whitcomb 
Riley in response to the father's admiration for Gov- 
ernor James Whitcomb of Indiana. "At no period in the 
history of the State," said the Governor, in his Thanks- 
giving message, "has the bounty of God in the control 
of the seasons been so signally manifested towards us 
as during the year now drawing to a close." He was 
thinking of material blessings, but Heaven was not 
unmindful of the new birth of poesy in the box cradle 
at Greenfield. 

True to the instincts of child-nature, the boy started 
from his cradle on a voyage of discovery. "The first 
thing I remember," said Riley, "was my father's riding 
up to the woodhouse door with a deer hanging from the 
pommel of his saddle; and about the second thing I 
remember was the bugler who galloped west on the 
National Road with news of the death of President 
Taylor." Before he could walk the Riley child learned 
that his by-name was "Bud," and that he had been thus 
lovingly distinguished by his Uncle Mart, Martin Whit- 
ten Riley, the runaway who had discovered him in the 
box cradle. The uncle, a few years "Bud's" senior, was 



22 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

himself a youth of "poetic symptoms," and, next to 
the mother, had the greatest influence on her boy 
in that morning of childish glee. He could 
invent stories for boys almost as interesting as 
those he remembered from books. He built a playhouse 
for the children in the apple trees, and sometimes when 
summer days were hot and long he climbed to it him- 
self "to moon over a novel" or to ease his heart of 
"hopeless verse." In springtime, when the hired hand 
went to the country to plant and plow corn, he took 
his place in the yard and garden. He pruned the apple 
trees, and it was often his fortune to sniff "alluring 
whiffs of the dear old-fashioned dinners the children 
loved." He was also the hired girl when the mother 
had more than she could do, as was often the case. At 
meal-time he seated 

"The garland of glad faces round the board — 
Each member of the family restored 
To his or her place, with an extra chair" 

for the farmer the father brought in from the street, or 
a state politician who came from afar on the long high- 
way for a conference with the lawyer at the noon hour. 
Uncle Mart inspired the little "Bud" with his first 
ambition, the desire to be a baker, and at divers times 
took the place of the mother or the hired girl when 
they were too busy to give lessons in cooking. "Bud" 
spent much of the time in the kitchen, rolling dough 
and making pies, which at first were little more than 
fragments. After a while he improved so that he 
"could build pies of legitimate size. My joy" (to quote 
from his own memory of them) "was complete when 
I could fashion a custard pie — and then came the feat, 
worthy of a slight-of-hand performer, of getting it 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 23 

into the oven without spilling." His ambition was not 
a childish whim. For several years he felt a twinge of 
disappointment that he had not realized it. He really 
thought he would make a success as a baker. 

The kitchen being a world far too small for a boy of 
"Bud's" possibilities, the circle of his discoveries soon 
extended to the garden and stable lot ; in short, he began 
to distinguish himself by an eminent degree of curios- 
ity. "Then," as he observed when older, "was the flood- 
tide of interrogation points. I could ask more questions 
than grandfather in Paradise could answer in a year" 
— why bears steal pigs from the pen — why they carry 
bee gums on their arms — where go the wagons on the 
Plank Road — what the leaves say when they whisper — 
why the grass is green — why the rain drools down the 
window-pane — why the moon is low and the stars are 
high — never an end of questions — and never an end of 
questing. One day the mother discovered that "Bud" 
was a poet, when he came running from the yard, all in 
a flutter, with a story of an apple shower. "Uncle 
held the basket," he prattled, 

"Old Aunt Fanny wuz shaking 'em down, 
And Johnny and Jimmy wuz picking 'em up." 

The lines lacked the touch of the trained lyrist, but as 
Uncle Mart said, "they tinkled." The hint of a tune- 
ful future may be taken for what it is worth, but there 
is testimony to the effect that the poetic impulse dawned 
in the Riley heart very early. He did not, like Bryant, 
"contribute verse to the county paper before he was 
ten years old," but he was a poet in feeling before 
that date. One spring morning Uncle Mart led him 
away for a whole-day ramble up a stream that rose in 
the hills and came prattling through the village — "the 



24 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

little willowy Branch of rhymes," it was, "that split 
the town" and mingled its current 

"With the limpid, laughing waters 
Of the Classic Brandywine." 

As Riley remembered, he was about six or seven 
years old. For him it was a day of blooming cheeks 
and open brow — a day of discovery. He recalled that 
Uncle Mart talked of the stream and the thick woods as 
a stage. He and "Bud" were stage-hands lifting cur- 
tains for views of scenery. "And not a great while 
after," said Riley, recalling the enchantment of that 
childish hour, "I learned that the world is a stage and 
that Fortune is the stage-hand that lifts the curtain." 
Back of Uncle Mart and "Bud" was a fairy impulse 
from the mother. The uncle credits her with "build- 
ing and formulating the happiest programs that were 
ever placed upon the boards of her home stage." The 
ramble along the Branch was the beginning of a period 
that sparkled with joy akin to that of the dancing 
stream. Often "Bud" was drawn to its banks to listen 
to its limpid waters. Its pebbles, glittering in 
the ripples, looked up to him "like the eyes of 
love." They did not kindle the poetic impulse in 
him as it was kindled a few years later by Tharpe's 
Pond, a "little mirror of the sky" in the woods, but 
there were "poetic symptoms" unmistakably. While 
he sought the play-place of his childhood, Nature 
planted in his heart the germs of "The Brook-Song," a 
lilting melody that rivals the music of the stream that 
inspired it. It was no fleeting influence that sparkled 
in his vision 

"Till the gurgle and refrain 

Of its music in his brain 

Wrought a happiness as keen to him as pain." 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 25 

A playmate of his age (now Mrs. Rose Mitchell 
Gregg) gives a village portrait of the Riley boy, such 
a picture as a friend once gave of Tennyson paddling 
in the sandy shallows of his boyhood stream. "I saw 
Riley once," she writes, "when he was about eight 
years old, down in our neighborhood wading in the 
Branch with his trousers rolled up above his knees. 
Holding them high as he could with his hands, he was 
kicking the water and looking for the deep places. He 
wore a little blue roundabout and a soft, white felt hat 
without band or lining. His hair was very light and cut 
short, his eyes big and blue and his face freckled. He 
was a slight little fellow, but keen and alert. I won- 
dered why he had wandered so far from home. Wad- 
ing in the Branch was a joyous pastime for Greenfield 
children." Smiling back on the incident Riley gave it 
the flavor of a rhyme — 

"My hair was just white as a dandelion ball, 
My face freckled worse than an old kitchen wall." 

His love of the brook reveals at that very early date 
what became for him a primary motive of life: 
passion for the beautiful — that something that sends 
children to the fields for flowers, the sense that delights 
in singing birds, the colors of sunset, and the rustle of 
leaves in October woods. "I remember," said Riley, 
"when that passion became a controlling influence, how 
it incited me to an act that does not now flame with 
the color it had then. I wanted a pair of boots with red 
tops. I slipped away from home to a shoe store where 
my father bought on credit. After looking in vain for 
them I selected a pair with green tops and told the 
clerk to charge them. At home I stole upstairs to my 
bedroom and there wore them all alone with great joy. 



26 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

I strode around the room proud as a knight with a spur 
on his heel. When any one came up the stairway I 
quickly pulled them off and hid them under the feather 
bed. Thus I enjoyed them for two weeks before my 
purchase was discovered. My father insisted on re- 
turning them, but my mother's love prevailed, and after 
that I was permitted to wear them in public. ,, 

A similar instance was Riley's purchase of a cake 
of toilet soap with pennies he had saved for the pur- 
pose. "I was probably eight years old," said he. "I 
wanted to pace back and forth in front of the show 
case — just look at it for a while before I bought. When 
a clerk came toward me I looked at something else till 
he gave attention to another customer. For weeks 
after I bought it I kept the cake in my pocket — just 
pleased to my finger-tips with its transparent beauty. 
I shall not grow old so long as I enjoy a show case of 
toilet soap." 

As runs the proverb, God oft hath a large share in a 
little house. In the present history, His share is in the 
log cabin that stood at the side of the old National Road 
in Greenfield. In the human as well as the divine order 
of things, the day arrived for it to be torn down — the 
family having moved to a new homestead — and Uncle 
Mart and the children came with the hired man to that 
end. Having lived in it for a decade, the mother was 
pensive, but the children were altogether happy. 

In that cabin home originated an influence that 
was as far-reaching as it was beautiful — the faith 
in fairies. Night after night Uncle Mart had tucked 
little "Bud" in his trundle bed and lulled him to sleep 
with fairy tales. That was the beginning. The faith 
in fairies never died. When "Bud" became a man, 
it was modified, but never forsaken. "Earth out- 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 27 

grows the mystic fancies," sang Mrs. Browning. As 
Riley saw it, the outgrowth was a fatal day for the 
earth. He held with Schiller and Wordsworth that in 
the overthrow of mythology the world had lost more 
than it had gained. As the image-making power in the 
mind of the race was busy with the marvelous things 
of old, so should it be busy with the marvelous things 
of now. Hence the Arabian Nights remained his 
favorite book. To the last, he held unalterably to the 
sentiment of the "Natural Educationists," that there 
are fairies in the hearts of all good and great people — 
"that fairies whisper to us to do good deeds — that 
fairies are the creative power which has caused the 
building of great structures, the painting of great pic- 
tures, the composition of great music, and the produc- 
tion of great poems." His lead pencil, a candlestick, 
wicker baskets and other objects about the room were 
fairies in disguise. Every thought that kindled his 
heart into rapture came to him on fairy wings from 
the shores of mystery, and whenever anything he did 
fell below the plane of fairy endeavor, "was reduced," 
as he said, "by the tyranny of conditions to the level of 
a humdrum existence," he was unhappy. The fairies 
were absent. The fire in his heart was low. Like 
Lowell, he mourned the loss of Aladdin's lamp and the 
beautiful castles in Spain. But this was never so when 
he could maintain a fairy interest in his work. When- 
ever his faculties were quickened to the fervor he ex- 
perienced in childhood, when visions of pure joy rav- 
ished his heart, his fevered sight was cooled. Then 
all was love— 5 

"The chords of life in utmost tension 
With the fervor of invention." 



28 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

The Marines traced a line of genealogy back to de- 
scendants of the Celts in Wales, the people, said by 
some authorities, to have had the most poetic child- 
hood of all the races. Who knows? Perhaps Riley's 
adorable faith in fairies, and his mother's before him, 
were after all the faith of the little people that once 
lived in the obscure islands and peninsulas of western 
Europe. Who knows? His charming simplicity, his 
delicacy of feeling, and his desire to penetrate the un- 
known may have had a Celtic origin, may have been 
traceable to "the race that above all others was fitted 
for family life and fireside joys." It is certainly a 
Celtic picture we have of Riley as a child in the log 
cottage. In the cabin, after twilight, while the apples 
sputtered on the hearth and the light from the fireplace 
flickered on the walls, stories reeled from Uncle Mart's 
fancy as brightly as the flames laughed up the chim- 
ney ; and best of all, the mother approved the harmless 
fictions and laughed heartily with the flames and the 
children. "Bud" once noted the absence of katydids 
and crickets — could not understand it. They were 
the fairies of summer-time, the mother had explained — 

"Only in the winter-time 
Did they ever stop, 
In the chip-and-splinter-time 
When the backlogs pop." 

As the cabin walls were lowered, other incidents were 
recalled. The children remembered the jolly winters, 
and particularly the coldest night of the year when the 
mother held the lamp and little "Bud" a candle, while 
they chinked the cracks where the wind blew through 
the floor. And just outside the front door, like a senti- 
nel, the old Snow-Man had stood for weeks in "lordly 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 29 

grandeur/' — the masterpiece that had surpassed the art 
of classic Greece. Uncle Mart was reminded of shelter 
from the rain. He distinctly remembered the "rever- 
ential shade" on the mother's face when listening to 
distant thunder, and her smile of gratitude when she 
heard the refrain of the rain on the roof. The mother 
recalled a rainy day when the father was away and 
the other children had gone a-visiting, how little "Bud" 
in a state of breathless anticipation, stood by the win- 
dow, marking the teams as they approached and van- 
ished on the National Road : 

"And there was the cabin window—- 
Tinkle, and drip, and drip! 
The rain above, and a mother's love, 
And God's companionship!" 

All in all, winter and summer, the log cottage was a 
thing of blessed memory. The poet was born there 
who, when grown, was to save from the ruins a picture 
of its simplicity and beauty — the young mother throned 
in her rocking-chair with a work-basket on the floor, 
the laughter and call of the children across the way, 
the summer wind luring the fragrance of roses from 
her window, the while her dreamy boy, lying near her, 
face downward, was bending 

"above a book 
Of pictures, with a rapt ecstatic look — 
Even as the mother's, by the self-same spell, 
Was lifted with a light ineffable — 
As though her senses caught no mortal cry, 
But heard, instead, some poem going by." 

One autumn the log cabin had received a coat of 
weather-boarding, but the exact year is indefinite, some 
claiming it was the year the poet was born, others the 
year following. Even the poet's father, who drew a 



30 ' JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

sketch of the cottage in his old age, was not sufficiently 
definite on the point to be historic. But all agree that 
the young married couple, on coming from the Ran- 
dolph County woods, to live in Greenfield, occupied the 
cabin. All agree that the poet was born there, and 
that it stood snugly at the corner of the lot in the shade 
of trees that grew on the edge of the street. 

Prior to the birth of his famous son, Reuben A. Riley 
had served one term in the state legislature with credit 
to himself and his constituency. There he had met 
Governor James Whitcomb, whom to meet was to honor 
and love. A few years later he zealously discharged the 
duties of county prosecuting attorney. He took great 
interest in politics, and on several occasions distin- 
guished himself for his eloquent defense of freedom. He 
was a leader in the Democratic party of Indiana and 
so remained till the Fremont campaign when he with 
Oliver P. Morton and others espoused the cause of the 
Republican party. In those stormy years he was in 
the full strength of his young manhood. Republican 
leaders, Morton among them, placed a high estimate 
on his services "in moulding the sentiments of the 
young men of the State," who later responded to the 
call of President Lincoln. "In the political campaigns 
from 1852 to 1860," to quote from a political opponent, 
"there was no orator more in demand than Reuben A. 
Riley, or one who more uniformly satisfied the de- 
mand. He expounded the principles of the new party 
as did no other orator in Indiana. His joint debates 
were the talk of campaigns. Men referred to his 
speeches as finished orations." 

All the while he was succeeding in the practice of 
the law. His public services brought him clients, 
brought him financial success. Prosperity came down 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 31 

the National Road and tipped the horn of plenty at his 
door, and that meant the means for a larger Riley 
homestead, 

"The simple, new frame house — eight rooms in all — 
Set just one side the center of the small 
But very hopeful Indiana town." 

While the father was absent campaigning, the mother 
and children at home worked with Mother Nature. 
They had a grape-arbor built like a covered bridge over 
the pathway to the garden. A row of currant bushes 
grew near. Bees murmured in hives at the side of the 
lot. Lilacs and flowering vines grew lavishly in the 
front yard. Apple trees stood here and there between 
the street and the garden, and 

"Under the spacious shade of these, the eyes 
Of swinging children saw the soft-changing skies." 

In that family of the Long Ago, were two brothers 
and two sisters — each, in the gracious afterwhiles, 
happily recalled by the gifted brother in the Child- 
World. A third sister, Martha Celestia Riley, born 
February 21, 1847, died in childhood. Oldest of the 
brothers was John Andrew Riley, born December 11, 
1844. He was the grave leader among them. He had 
a quick observant eye and a keen retentive memory. 
Although inclined to serious duties, he nevertheless 
could forget the gravity of life and kindle fires 
of delight. For a season he would make tame 
incidents sparkle with lively mirth, and then (the chil- 
dren could never just quite tell why) there almost in- 
variably followed an interval of seeming remorse that 
made him undesirable company. Nevertheless he was 
loved for his love of others : 



32 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"So do I think of you alway, 
Brother of mine, as the tree, — 
Giving the ripest wealth of your love 
To the world as well as me." 

The youngest brother, Humboldt Alexander Riley, 
was born October 15, 1858. He was specially remem- 
bered for his insistence on truth in his elders. They 
recalled his peach-bloom complexion and particularly 
his love of father and mother. Freaks of temper were 
yoked in him to uncommon aspirations and affections. 
He was the lorn child, 

"Whose yearnings, aches and stings 
Over poor little things" 

were as poignant and pitiful as the sorrow of the family 
over his death in early manhood. 

The second daughter, Elva May Riley, born Janu- 
ary 14, 1856, was the "little lady" with golden curls. 
She had the blue of the skies in her eyes. She never 
romped up and down stairs. She was 

"thoughtful every way 
Of others first — The kind of a child at play 
That 'gave up,' for the rest, the ripest pear 
Or peach or apple in the garden there." 

The third and youngest daughter, Mary Elizabeth 
Riley, the only member of the family living at the time 
these words are written, was born October 27, 1864. 
With a touch of fancy (in the child book) her eminent 
brother recalled a little girl with a "velvet lisp on 
elfin lips" — 

"Though what her lips missed, her dark eyes could say 
With looks that made her meaning clear as day." 

As she grew to womanhood, she manifested many of 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 33 

his characteristics, his subtle recognition of and affec- 
tion for the fairy wonderland of days gone by, love 
of nature, and the harmless eccentricities of human 
kind. 

It may seem to some that the Riley lad neglected the 
schoolroom, and in one sense he did. "Omit the school- 
room from my history entirely," he once said, "and the 
record of my career would not be seriously affected." 
The remark was not made in criticism of the public 
school, but rather to show that he had not been edu- 
cated in the conventional manner. In ways innumer- 
able, before he entered the schoolhouse, he was getting 
an education. He was taught to read at home. From the 
very first he seems to have practised "the art of think- 
ing, .the art of using his mind." His little system of 
opinions was* not faultless, but he dared to uphold it. 
He strove for the useful side of things and was 
just as vigorous in contending against what he thought 
was useless. He compassed the First Reader while 
other children struggled with its opening pages. In a 
few days he had reached the end of the book — the lesson 
in which Willy, Katy, Carry and their mother go to the 
seaside. The children were digging in the sand with 
wooden spades, when they threw them down to look at 
a ship sailing by. Soon the ship will be out of sight, 
according to the lesson, and the children will go home. 
"They will do nothing of the sort," said Riley, recall- 
ing his youthful dream ; "they will sail with the ship 
to foreign lands for tea, sugar, pineapples and cocoa- 
nuts. The wind will transport them to far-away gar- 
dens of happiness, at least it did me, and I believe all 
children will be so transported if parents would begin 
aright to develop in them the imaginative faculty. Of 
course children do not have the poetic vision Long- 



34 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

fellow had when he lay down and listened to the sound 
of the waves, but they do have in their little hearts a 
picture of 

'Spanish sailors with bearded lips 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
And the magic of the sea.' " 

The reason for "Bud's" special interest in the sea- 
side was this. He had been taught his letters and 
Primer by his mother and Uncle Mart, but the art of 
comprehending what he read was chiefly taught him by 
a careless-haired boy, Almon Keefer, whose "interest- 
ing and original ways with children," said Riley, 
"fairly ignite the eye of memory with rapture." Al- 
mon had an open, honest countenance and a joyous in- 
terest in nature but his chief merit, as far as the Riley 
nursery was concerned, was his interest in books, and 
his skill in reading aloud to children. One of the books 
he read was Tales of the Ocean, an old book of stories, 
in character much like Tales of the Wayside Inn. 
Of the early books it was quite near if not the first of 
the list. 

"Its back was gone, 
But its vitality went bravely on 
With its delicious tales of land and sea." 

When therefore "Bud" was sent to school, it was 
natural that he should protest against the foolish 
repetitions in the First Reader and hurry on through 
it to kernels of interest. He was a little rebel at the 
end of the second lesson : 

"Is it an ax? 
It is an ax. 
It is my ax. 
Is it by me? 
My ax is by me. 
So it is." 




■ •- 



Log Cabin on the National Road Where the Poet Was Born 




Riley Homestead in Greenfield, 1S56 



THE RHYME OF -CHILDHOOD 35 

"How criminal," said Riley, commenting on the 
schoolboy experience, "to cramp the imagination of a 
child in a barren back-lot like that when a world of 
ships and singing birds and meadow fields may be had 
for the asking. The secret of the whole matter is this, 
whether it be the lesson for the child or the book for 
the man — it must be interesting." A vital opinion, 
paralleled by the observation of Herbert Spencer, that 
too often our system of education drags the child away 
from the facts in which it is interested. "Bud" Riley 
was Spencer's self-taught London gamin gathering out- 
of-school wisdom for himself. 

When Riley became associate editor of a oounty 
paper, he reiterated his protest in a half -column, "To 
Parents and Preceptors": 

"We will shortly issue," he wrote in humorous vein 
in the first paragraph, "a little educational work, which 
we design shall take the place of McGuffey's First 
Reader. We have nothing against McGuffey, but we 
love the institutions of our country, moral and educa- 
tional, and by the publication of the little volume we 
are at present compiling, we confidently expect to meet 
a long-felt want of our public schools, and by its pres- 
entation to our bright-eyed little friend, 'the school- 
boy, with shining morning face, creeping like a snail, 
unwillingly to school/ we expect to take the initial step 
toward a general revolution of the educational system 
as it stands to-day." 

Save for his first school Riley seldom recalled his 
school-days pleasantly. "My first teacher," said he, 
"Mrs. Frances Neill, was a little, old, rosy, rolly-poly 
woman — looking as though she might have just come 
rolling out of a fairy story, so lovable she was and so 
jolly and so amiable. Her school was kept in a little old 



36 JAMES WHITCOMB BILEY 

one-story dwelling of three rooms, and — like a bracket 
on the wall — a little porch in the rear, which was part 
of the playground of her 'scholars/ — for in those days 
pupils were very affectionately called 'scholars/ Her 
very youthful school was composed of possibly twelve 
or fifteen boys and girls. I remember particularly the 
lame boy, who always had the first ride in the swing 
in the locust tree at 'recess.' 

"This first teacher was a mother, too, to all her 
'scholars/ When drowsy they were often carried to an 
inner room — a sitting-room — where many times I was 
taken with a pair of little chaps and laid to slumber 
on a little made-down pallet on the floor. She would 
ofttimes take three or four of us together; and I can 
recall how my playmate and I, having been admonished 
into silence, grew deeply interested in looking at her 
husband, a spare old blind man sitting always by the 
window, which had its shade drawn down. After a 
while we became accustomed to the idea, and when our 
awe had subsided we used to sit in a little sewing chair 
and laugh and talk in whispers and give imitations of 
the little old man at the window." 

Riley recalled that Mrs. Neill wore a white cap with 
ribbands — and that she also wore a mole on her face 
"right where Abraham Lincoln wore his, and that it 
had eye-winkers in it, for when she kissed him they 
tickled his nose." Occasionally a large boy came up 
from town and during recess beat a tenor drum to drive 
the mice away, but the "scholars" never saw any mice. 
When a boy was guilty of swearing Mrs. Neill 
wrapped a rag round a pen holder, dipped it 
in ashes and cleansed his mouth. If he had 
kicked another boy she whipped him on the foot. 
Her whippings were so softly administered that the 



THE KHYME OF CHILDHOOD 37 

"scholars" rather enjoyed them, particularly the sequel, 
when she led the penitent to a little Dame Trot 
kitchen and gave him a piece of fried chicken, or a big 
slice of white bread buttered with jam or jelly. When 
the time came to call the children to their books, she 
tied a yellow bandana to a switch and cheerily waved 
it at the door. Occasionally one "scholar" (the reader 
infers his name) came tardily from the yard wearily 
repeating, "By Double, it's Books! By Double, it's 
Books !" The outside of the schoolhouse was his fav- 
orite side ; he preferred to climb the apple trees in the 
schoolhouse lot. There was a Harvest tree at home, 
a few doors away, on which the apples "fairly hurried 
ripe for him." As he happily said, "they dropped to 
meet me half-way up the tree." The school yard was 
the place for happiness: 

"Best, I guess, 
Was the old 'Recess' — 
No tedious lesson nor irksome rule — 
When the whole round World was as sweet to me 
As the big ripe apple I brought to School." 

The little school world was not unlike other worlds 
of its kind except, perhaps, that it had a larger meas- 
ure of freedom. As to signs in it of future greatness, 
there was none. "The Big Tree sprout," a wit lat- 
terly observed, "was not bigger than any other sprouts. 
It was the ordinary thing; it made no show; it did not 
suggest a future son of fame." Though small, the 
world was nevertheless big enough to grow a large 
tree of gratitude. Like the log cabin in which the Riley 
child was born, the little schoolroom was a thing of 
blessed memory. The "scholar" always remembered 
his first teacher as "a very dear old woman, so old 
she was," he said, "that she died one afternoon — just 



38 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

like falling asleep. She was so tired, so worn and old. 
Who knows ?" he asked, when age approached his own 
footsteps. "She may be rested now. Somewhere she 
may be waiting for all the little boys and girls she 
loved to come romping in again." 

Usually, when prompted to write, Riley looked back- 
ward for material. The pioneer past was a rich land- 
scape for him. It was beautifully blended with the 
hope of the future. The Long. Ago was one with the 
golden meadow of the Great To Be. He would find a 
rustic frame on the walls of memory and make a pic- 
ture for it that sometimes surpassed the art of the 
painter. Such a picture is the popular poem, "Out to 
Old Aunt Mary's." Fortune made the frame for it 
one summer in his childhood days. On condition that 
they were good school children, the mother had prom- 
ised "Bud" and his elder brother, John, a holiday with 
relatives a few miles away on Sugar Creek, and then a 
week's visit with uncles and aunts some fifty miles dis- 
tant in Morgan County. Passing the toll-gate with its 
well-sweep pole, the boys began to realize their dream 
in the sunshine of the old National Road, the long high- 
way that was lost somewhere in the wilderness of the 
West. Near Sugar Creek they left the highway for a 
winding road past fields and clearings in the back- 
woods. The elder brother often recalled the welcome 
they received from a family of children who came 
romping through the barn lot to the end of the long 
lane, up which he and "Bud" hurried on the wings of 
joy. As the poetic brother remembered it, 

"They pattered along in the dust of the lane, 
As light as the tips of the drops of the rain." 

Riley gives briefly his own account of the visit to 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 39 

Morgan County e "In a vague way," said he, seeking a 
tangible basis for the poem, "I had in mind a visit to 
Mooresville and Martinsville, when Cousin Rufus 
(Judge William R. Hough of Greenfield) and my 
mother drove there with my brother and me and my 
sister Elva, then a child in her mother's arms. My 
brother and I sat on a seat that unfolded from the 
dashboard in the manner of old-fashioned vehicles of 
the time. It was a joyous journey, for Cousin Rufus 
was the j oiliest, cheeriest young man that ever lived 
and there was always a song on his lips. We drove 
from Greenfield to Indianapolis, where we stopped for 
a midday meal. At Mooresville we visited Uncle James 
and Aunt Ann Marine, and at Martinsville, Uncle 
Charles and Aunt Hester Marine." At both places, 
"Bud's" keen appetite was satisfied with bountiful old- 
fashioned dinners — coffee so hot it spangled his eyes 
with tears, honey in the comb, quince "preserves," 
juicy pies, and jelly and jam and marmalade. 

There were several other visits, so that the poem is 
truly a composite one. There was no particular Aunt 
Mary, but the little journey to Sugar Creek and the 
longer one to Morgan County formed the rustic frame 
for the picture. "The simple, child-felt joy of those 
visits," to quote Riley's words, "was as warm in my 
memory when I wrote the poem as when a boy I jogged 
back on the dusty road to Greenfield." 

Citizens of Greenfield maintained what was com- 
monly termed a Select School supported by subscrip- 
tion, a spring and summer term of twelve weeks, 
"chiefly," said an old resident, "for the purpose of 
keeping idle children off the streets." "It is desir- 
able," said the school notice, "that all scholars com- 
mence with the school, as it will be to their material 



40 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

advantage, as well as an accommodation to the teacher." 
"Bud" Riley saw in it no "material advantage." He 
was not disposed to "accommodate the teacher" in that 
way. School in June and July was a violation of nat- 
ural laws. Holidays, alas, were rare, with intolerable 
periods between : "Fourth of July — Circus Day — and 
Decoration Day — but give him Saturday, when he 
could play and play and play." As might be expected, 
the humdrum of the school made a runaway out of 
him. "I made a break," said he, "for the open world." 
One day he hurried away in his bare feet down a dusty 
lane to a cornfield; another day across an orchard to 
Brandywine to listen to the splashing of the swimmers. 
Another day he waded through the tall grass to an old 
graveyard. Every boy knew of such a spot in the 
early days. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn ran 
to one a mile or two from the village, an old-fashioned 
western kind, "with a crazy board fence around 
it." Such a cluster of pioneer graves the Riley lad 
and his shabby companions found in their rambles, 
"save," said Riley, "that it was enclosed with a zigzag 
rail fence which the cows pushed down for grazing 
purposes." Be it known, since the lads played Robin 
Hood among the broken headstones and in the "Sher- 
wood Forest" near, that their little souls were not 
steeped in melancholy. Hard by stood the wide-spread- 
ing beech with its lower boughs touching the earth, 
the great baobab tree of Riley's childhood. How allur- 
ing it was. Made magical by the soft summer atmos- 
phere and the enchanting vista of open fields, to a boy 
it seemed in the distance a gigantic mound of verdure, 
over which he might roll and tumble as he would roll 
in beds of blue-grass on the hillside. 

Another day, smiling and laughing with his little 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 41 

friends, he ran away from school to the mulberry- 
tree. Was there ever anything more pathetic to a child 
than that boy sitting at his desk in hot weather, waiting 
for a holiday to come ? And anything more poetic than 
his anticipation of that tree ? The thought of it as he 
ran onward with the boys down the long highway was 
as balmy as the breeze, that powdered his path with the 
blossoms from the locust trees. "The dust in the 
road," said Riley, "was like velvet. The odor from 
ragweed and fennel was sweet as* the scent of lilies 
in the Garden of Eden." 

Several mulberry trees stood in fields round Green- 
field, a venerable one in the edge of a meadow, east of 
the Old Fair Ground, near Little Brandywine. 
"I vividly recall," said Riley, "how we used to scram- 
ble across the meadow to that tree. Not until we were 
directly beneath it did the birds, voraciously feeding on 
the berries, see us, and then they flew away in a whir 
of confusion. And the fruit of that tree! It had a 
strange deliciousness. Simply — it was to all other 
fruits as maple syrup is to all other syrups." 

A rail was placed in the fork of the tree for boys to 
climb. That rail led to Fame for one of them — but 
how blissfully ignorant they were of all her trumpets 
and temples ; 

"What were all the green laurels of Fame unto me, 
With my brows in the boughs of the mulberry tree ?" 

Some forty years after the poet's boyhood, Judge 
David S. Gooding found a truant youth stealing down 
the back ways of Greenfield, who tried to excuse his 
truancy to the Judge on the ground that James Whit- 
comb Riley ran away from school to a mulberry tree. 
"Yes, sir," returned the Judge, with his usual Doctor 



42 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Johnson air, "yes, sir — and when you, my lad, promise 
to write as fine a poem as The Mulberry Tree/ you 
may run away from school. The Riley boy was wide- 
awake ; he played Robin Hood ; he saw the leafy shade ; 
he heard the flutter of birds ; you play nothing, you see 
nothing, hear nothing; you are skulking, hiding along 
the creek here like a burglar. Go back to school! — 
read your books!" 

Whatever may be said in behalf of modern school- 
days with all their conveniences and improvements, 
one fact is not disputed by those who recall the golden 
glory of days gone by: that the children of the 
present do not find the paradise in their surroundings 
that many children of the pioneer day found in theirs. 
Boys and girls had their sorrows then, it is true, but 
they also had something the modern child too often 
does not have — a Child-heart nourished with heaven- 
born visions and realizations of joy and beauty. Too 
often the modern Child-heart is dwarfed and smothered 
by the glitter of deception, show and sham. "The 
Child-heart," the poet often said, and the older he 
grew the more fervidly he said it : 

"The Child-heart is so strange a little thing — 
So mild — so timorously shy and small — 
When grown-up hearts throb, it goes scampering 
Behind the wall, nor dares peer out at all — 

but could it peer out, could it come to us from the dark- 
ness, could it light up this dull thing we call maturity, 
could we become children in trust, in truth, in love, 
then civilization would enter the kingdom of Heaven as 
Jesus said — and that kingdom would be here and now. 
I know," the poet continued, "the Bible says to put 
away childish things, but we are not to put away the 
Child-heart, the soul-reposing belief in things, the pure, 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 43 

heavenly absence of all pretension — we are not to put 
that away. Why is it I can not read mythology to- 
day? Because I have lost faith in it. Why, when I 
read Pilgrim's Progress, I could see the whiskers on 
Giant Despair as plain as day. But I could not have 
read it had I known it was an allegory. All of these 
fancies of my childhood have made it possible for me 
to understand children now-a-days, and to portray them 
more perfectly. When I come across a fanciful child, 
just about as superstitious as I was, I know how to talk 
to it and better how to write about the things it loves." 

It was Riley's boyhood fortune to vibrate between 
town and country. "I was not quite a country boy," 
said he; "I lived in a little village, just across the alley 
from the country. I associated with country boys and 
girls. I was always on hand at the country gather- 
ings. When I went to see my little friends in the coun- 
try I stayed all night. I have slept four-in-a-bed after 
a boisterous hunt with the boys for watermelons in 
the cornfields. In all my associations with country peo- 
ple there was always enough distinction for me to see 
the better side of them as a visitor." 

It is literally true that the poet in the morning- 
tide of life realized the happiness of childhood 
he so lovingly describes in his poems. In the 
vicinity of Greenfield, that village of three or 
four hundred inhabitants, he found a wondrous 
world. He had his little share of disappointments, 
of course, but they did not fill his childish cup 
with bitterness. Within wandering distance of the 
town he found the Paradise of Childhood. There in 
season, the songs of orchard-birds dripped daily from 
whispering trees. There was the green earth and the 
infinite heavens above it he called the Child-World, 



44 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"The blossom-time of existence," he wrote, recalling 
his boyhood excursions; 

"How always fair it was and fresh and new — 
How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyes 
With treasures of surprise." 

Rapture infinite, mysteries unriddled but retaining 
their primitive enchantment still — such the Riley lad 
found in and around Greenfield. 

After the poet had passed his fiftieth mile-stone he 
frequently speculated on what Heaven would be like, 
and the sort of life one would live there. "We dream 
of Heaven," said he; "we were in Heaven when we 
were children and did not know it. The field is not lim- 
ited," he went on ; "you can imagine that anything can 
take place in Heaven; anything, anything. For in- 
stance, you might imagine that things would go on 
there as in frontier times they did here on earth. 
Restore the rapture and rhythm of my childhood days 
and I can not think of many improvements. In Heaven 
each one of us might be assigned certain things to do, 
certain daily tasks; and betimes we might ourselves 
choose to do the thing we desire to do most of all. 
Think of it! Suppose I was permitted to drop on my 
knees again and inhale the fragrance of crushed penny- 
royal — permitted to go back to a day in my childhood, 
the day I first wandered away with my little friends 
to the mulberry tree — permitted to have the whole, 
long joyous day before me again: be happy, ragged, 
barefooted, with everything back as it used to 
be — even to the stone-bruise on my heel. To have 
over again one of those dewy mornings of fifty years 



ago 



i" 



The gracious smile of those days of old! To 
Riley it was the glitter of the sun in tropic lands. 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 45 

Joyous winds winnowed cares from life as chaff from 
the wheat. His blood was warm as wine. All things 
throbbed with the pulse of spring. 

In those days of obscure beginnings the recluse 
who had lived in the cabin by Walden Pond 
published* his Story of Life in the Woods. "The 
finest qualities of our nature," he wrote, "like the bloom 
of fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate 
handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one 
another thus tenderly. We have no time to be any- 
thing but machines. We lay up treasures where moth 
and rust corrupt and where thieves break through and 
steal. Wasting our substance in blind obedience to 
blundering oracles, we contract ourselves in a nutshell 
of frivolous employment and creep down the road of 
life." 

Thus the recluse made his protest against the 
vanities of civilized life. Soon after he made 
it, there slipped away to the woods near 
Greenfield a lad ten or twelve years of age, who 
was destined to make a similar protest — not as a 
recluse, not harshly, but gently, so deftly indeed that 
the people began to nourish the finer qualities of their 
nature without marking the precise moment when the 
sunlight came to warm them into being. Alone 
in the solitude, the lad stood on the shore 
of a little "lake of light," whose wine-colored waters 
were as transparent as the inland sea in Walden 
Woods, although its homely name, Tharpe's Pond, 
lacked the euphony of the classic New England name. 
It was a balmy summer day. Wading into the warm, 
"winey waters" up to his waist, he gazed through a 
sky-window in the roof of the woods. What were his 
thoughts? 



46 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"Did he sleep? Did he dream? 
Did he wonder and doubt? 
Were things what they seem? 
Or were visions about?" 

Forward from that day, he was never wholly alone in 
the world — never just James Whitcomb Riley. There 
was always beside him the lad of Used-To-Be, what he 
called "the quivering, palpitating spirit of youth." 
Sometimes the spirit was a vague, sometimes a vivid 
presence. Whenever it was vivid, whenever he stood 
before an unexplored world with the rapture of the 
lad who stood before the deep, pathless forest, then 
he could think the thoughts, live the hopes, and suffer 
the tragedies of little folks. He could write verse for 
children. "Often," said Riley, recalling his lost youth, 
"I stood on the shore of the pond and gazed into the 
interminable mystery of the woods. Every tree was a 
fabulous consideration. Deer came with their antlers 
up to question the approach of civilization. There 
was a pigeon roost near. It was glorious at twilight 
to see the pigeons drop down in swarms from the 
clouds. The sky was full of fairies." Sometimes he 
went alone to the pond. In the early morning, he said, 
borrowing the dewy lines from Tennyson, the trees 
were wrapped in a happy mist 

"Like that which kept the heart of Eden green 
Before the useful trouble of the rain." 

The day the Riley lad waded into the sylvan waters, 
that day "the poet was born in his soul." For the first 
time mysterious voices seemed to be talking to him. 
They were feeble, indistinct, it was true ; nevertheless, 
he was certain their murmur had a personal meaning. 
The leaves tried to whisper to him. When the breeze 



THE RHYME OF CHILDHOOD 47 

wandered out of the thicket and stirred the waters, he 
began to wonder what the ripples were saying. There 
was a "deep, purple wine of shade" in the forest, but 
he did not see it then, — not for a fortnight of years. 
It was enough as the seasons came and went that he 
could distinctly recall the dawn of poetic perception. 
Whenever he could vividly remember the boy he was 
then, whenever he could wade through "the lake of 
light" in the woods, whenever he could translate the 
song of the birds, whenever he could match the music 
of lisping leaves with the harmony of human emotions, 
whenever he could bask in the sun of Memory and 
feel around him the invisible atmosphere of Love, he 
could write poetry. 

Such was the heavenly land of childhood for which 
the poet could never find jewels enough to diamond 
with his praise. The green earth vibrated with love 
and wonder. There was ever a song of dewy morn- 
ings, fragrant meadows, and joyous children. Others 
might sing of Heaven — he rejoiced that they did — but 
he would sing 

"The praises of this lower Heaven with tireless voice 

and tongue, 
Even as the Master sanctions — while the heart beats 

young." 



CHAPTER III 

SALAD DAYS — A CRISIS — AND A TRADE 

MY SALAD days when I was green in judgment," 
says Cleopatra in the play — "and soaked as a 
sponge with love-sickness," added Riley, re- 
peating her lines. "My salad days," said he, "began 
when I first fell in love with a schoolgirl and lasted 
till my majority. If it is a question of verdancy, they 
lasted longer. They were supposed to be school-days, 
but since the schoolroom was a secondary matter, I call 
them salad days. I was uncommonly green in judg- 
ment" 

The story of a school-day love appears in his 
"Schoolboy Silhouettes," written at a later period for 
the Indianapolis Herald, and reiterates the opinion 
expressed in his early poem, "Friday Afternoon," that 

"The old school-day romances 
Are the dearest after all." 

"Mousing about in a garret, among odds and ends, 
in search of a boot-leg for a garden hinge," Riley 
comes upon an old McGuffey Reader, and promptly 
there is blown to him "a gust of memory from the Long 
Ago." He finds on a fly leaf a schoolboy couplet: 

"As sure as the vine doth the stump entwine 
Thou art the lump of my saccharine." 

"And who was the Lump?" he asks. "Let me see — 

and in memory there suddenly blossoms into life the 

shy, sweet face of Lily — no matter what the other 

48 



SALAD DAYS 49 

name, since a long while ago it was thrown aside like 
the rubbish in the garret. But Lily, my Lily, comes 
back and reigns again; and all the wine of love that 
ripens in the musty bins of my old heart, boils up and 
bubbles o'er. We were such friends, you know — such 
tender, loving friends. I really believe our teacher (an 
old maid with green spectacles, who had been suffering 
with neuralgia for a week, and was heartless as a 
hack-driver) — I really believe she hated us — at least 
she always kept our desks far apart as the narrow 
limits of the schoolroom would allow, and even at 
'recess* invariably kept one of us in and sometimes 
both for some real or fancied misdemeanor." The boy 
had thrown "a kiss at Lily and she had blushed as rosy 
as the apple she threw him in return." Miserere 
domine! he failed to catch it, and it "went bumping and 
rattling among the slates and desks, tattling all the 
tale of love." After a scuffle with the teacher, the 
schoolboy lover was cornered in the woodbox, 
savagely punched with the wrong end of the 
broom — and made to stand with his face to 
the wall all afternoon. After dismissal he was 
"dressed down in the good old-fashioned method of the 
time," and sent home. On leaving the schoolhouse the 
boy stole a hasty glance through the window and was 
astonished to discover "the green-eyed dame bending 
serenely over her desk — eating an apple." 

Thus a schoolboy romance was brought to a tragic 
end, which accounts for his clinging some fifteen years 
after to a folded leaf from the girl's copy-book, with its 
quaint old axiom, "There is no ship like friendship." 
Lily's slender hand had traced the lines. It gave him 
pleasure to dream tenderly of the school-day episode, 
while — 



50 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"The echo of a measured strain 
Beat time to nothing in his head, 
From an odd corner of the brain." 

His interest in the frivolities of sentiment declined 
slowly. Up to the advent of his bachelor days, he car- 
ried love ditties in his pocket, one in particular by his 
friend, John Hay, which, he said, "dripped a sticky 
kind of sweetness that made the society of young girls 
interesting." Love ditties made the company of maid- 
ens "more intoxicating than things that delight the 
palate." 

The real tragedy of the schoolroom however was not 
the trivial woes of school-day love. It was being 
indoors. The Riley lad sat near a window and 
just beyond it was the border-line of the Great 
Out-of-Doors, which by all the laws of heart and mind 
he considered his schoolhouse. He was in sight of the 
National Road. At that particular time, the long 
highway swarmed with evidences of the Pike's Peak ex- 
citement. In summer and autumn there were all sorts 
of animals in the cavalcade, horses, oxen, mules and 
donkeys, crazy vehicles of every description, and men 
with dogs driving hogs and turkeys to market. Riley 
remembered that there was a cow hitched to a prairie 
schooner. "Lightning Express" was painted in large 
letters on the outside of the tent cloth to keep the emi- 
grant's spirits up and the spectators smiling. With 
such a lively procession passing the window daily it 
was asking the impossible that a schoolboy should be 
solemn or even studious. It was as natural for him to 
laugh at things in that cavalcade as it was for lambs 
to bleat or the chat to whistle. 

His eyes fell one day on a picture that would kindle 
the interest of the dullest youth. "I recall it as vividly," 



SALAD DAYS 51 

he wrote in the "Silhouettes," "as if the pic- 
ture were before me now — a bareheaded man, 
perhaps fifty years old, a fanatic of the time, 
harnessed like a horse, drawing a two-wheeled 
cart along the street. He was a well-made man 
of fifty years, perhaps, rugged as the horse he so oddly 
represented. He was smoothly shaven as a priest and 
pink-faced as a country girl. His hair was light and 
clipped closely to the scalp, as if his brains had grown 
too warm and needed cooling off. He seemed wholly 
unconscious of the sensation he was creating in our 
little village. Flocks of wondering women filled the 
doors and windows as he passed, while the men-folks 
dropped their garden tools and stood staring in amaze- 
ment. Good St. Anthony himself could not have re- 
pressed a smile at the antics of the two-legged centaur 
as he cantered along, clucking to himself and shying 
occasionally at an oyster-can, or an old boot lying by 
the sidewalk. Following at his heels, the rag-tag and 
bob-tail of the town completed the procession. The 
man halted opposite the schoolhouse where he un- 
hitched himself — frisked out of the harness — snorted 
and kicked — lay down and rolled over a time or two — 
shook himself and then abruptly began an incoherent 
harangue on the subject of religion, interspersing his 
remarks with love songs composed by himself, printed 
copies of which he offered to the music-loving public 
at the rate of five cents per ballad." 

Now it is readily seen that here was cause for merri- 
ment. The child of the doldrums must admit that such 
an outbreak would seriously damage the discipline of a 
schoolroom. "Our thrills of laughter and excitement," 
said Riley, "should have shaken the walls and rafters ; 
instead, the school had to smother its mirth and put 



52 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

its merry features to sleep." His favorite teacher, Lee 
0. Harris, would have let the children have their way 
for one hour at least. "The schooldame," he rhymed 
pleasantly, 

"Should have promptly resigned her position — 
Let them open a new Pandemonium there 
And set up a rival Perdition." 

Instead of doing that, she was vexed beyond endur- 
ance. "Any further manifestation of this uncalled-for 
levity," she stormed, "will be promptly met with the 
punishment it richly merits." 

Lessons in arithmetic and geography were reviewed 
and then the class came in the Fifth Reader to Irv- 
ing's "Bobolink." At the same instant the fanatic 
across the way "burst into an eruption of song." To 
the Riley youth there was a striking similarity in the 
happiness of the two strange birds. The man in the 
street was a bobolink, too, "overcome with the ecstasy 
of his own music." The lad envied him his freedom 
as the Irving schoolboy had envied the bobolink 
the freedom of the meadows. "No lessons, no task, 
no school: nothing but holiday, frolic, green fields 
and fine weather." While the class recited the lesson, 
the youthful Riley gave wings to his imagination. He 
was enchanted with his foolish fancies. Among them 
was the frame-work of "a fairy tale, in which 
a naughty bobolink should be transformed into a great 
wingless man, who had to work like a donkey, and bray 
songs for a living." 

The street entertainment was fleeting, but beyond it 
in the fields and woods was a lodestar that drew the 
lad's affections every day. Rather than "run the gaunt- 
let of cross-examination," he ran to that. "In the 



SALAD DAYS 53 

woods," he said, "flinty, two-edged problems of arith- 
metic do not zip round my ears." "The lad got his edu- 
cation," said his friend Bill Nye, "by listening to the 
inculcation of morals and then sallying forth with other 
lads to see if Turner's plums were ripe. What glorious 
holidays he took without consent of the teacher — 
rambling in the woods all day, gathering nuts and paw- 
paws and woodticks and mosquito bites." How in- 
scrutable to the Riley schoolboy were the punishments 
the teacher inflicted, and they were still inscrutable 
when he became a man. How pitiless "the melancholy 
tribunals of visitors," whose way was to look reproach- 
fully upon the ignorance of boys at the blackboard. 
"Never a sigh," he wrote, "for the forty gipsy-hearted 
children, panting in vain for 

'The feeling of the breeze upon the face — 
The feeling of the turf beneath the feet ; 
And no walls but the far-off mountain-tops.' " 

Boyhood visions of jolly seclusion on creek bottoms — 
school books and schoolmasters could not rob the "luck- 
less urchin" of these. "How the sunlight," Riley wrote 
again, "laughed on afternoons, and danced about the 
desks, and fluttered up and down the walls on wings of 
gold ; and how it glided with its mystic touch each new- 
born leaf that trembled on the trees and filled and 
flooded all the happy world beyond, until the very 
atmosphere seemed drunken with delight." It is mani- 
fest that Riley in his youth had a soul-hunger for free- 
dom. 

"His heart no formal schools would brook; 
But to himself the world he took." 

"My school life," said he, "was a farce all the way 
through. My Second Reader said : 'Some little boys do 



54 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

not love their books.' I did not love mine. I never 
heartily learned a school-book lesson in my life. When 
I did answer a question the answer was whispered in 
my ear by some one. I copied my blackboard work 
from the classmate next to me. I could have learned 
had I tried, but my obstinate nature could not brook 
the fact that I was sent to school. My nature was full 
of perversity. I tried McGuffey's Speller but the 
author was so incoherent in his thought I gave up in 
despair. The book showed haste in preparation and 
was doubtless an answer to the call of a greedy pub- 
lisher. I seldom saw the inside of a grammar, nor 
have I any desire to see one now." (He was forty 
years old when he said it.) "Language came to me 
naturally. When I was a boy," he went on, "schools 
were run on the principle that the hardest method of 
learning was the best. Flogging was still in favor as 
was also the stupid old system of forcing boys to learn 
by rote. My father was an old-fashioned man, very 
strict in his rule over his children. One of his rules 
applied to certain books they were forbidden to read. 
Naturally I wanted to read those books. I did not care 
a rap for the books he and my teachers prescribed. I 
read the forbidden books, although I had to steal them 
from the library to do it. That was my introduction to 
mythology." 

Evidently these are not the words of a dissimulator. 
He tells the truth about himself, and is not overmuch 
concerned about the consequences. It happened that 
way and what had happened could not be recalled. 

"I was born thirty years ago," he once said to an 
interviewer, "and reared at Greenfield — a motherly 
little old town, at whose apron-strings I am still tied. 
I was sent to school at a very early age — and then sent 






SALAD DAYS 55 

back again. At the very beginning I conceived a dis- 
like for its iron discipline, whose sole object seemed 
to be to harness every mental energy into brute-like 
subjection, and then drive it wherever old bat-eyed 
Tyranny might suggest. I could barely balance myself 
on one leg when I began to kick in the traces and was 
speedily labeled a bad boy. 

"There was but one book at school in which I found 
a single interest — McGufFey's Fourth Reader" (Love 
for the Fifth Reader came after his school-days.) "It 
was the tallest book known and to boys of my size it 
was a matter of eternal wonder how I could belong to 
the big class in that Reader. At sixteen I could seldom 
repeat the simplest schoolboy speech without breaking 
down." Once, after hesitating with the usual awkward 
repetition, he had to sit down "in wordless misery 
among the unfeeling and derisive plaudits of the 
school." After that, rather than repeat the harrowing 
experience, he deliberately chose punishment. Some- 
times he practised his declamation half an hour before 
the ringing of the bell, but his heart failed him when 
he thought of appearing before the school. Once he 
prepared to entertain the school with the story of 
"Casabianca," the gallant youth of thirteen, who stood 
on the burning deck of a ship-of-war in a battle off 
the mouth of the Nile. He trained for an old-time 
Friday afternoon exercise, was told by his teacher to 
speak out clear and full — not to hang his head — not to 
let his arms hang down like empty sleeves — but to 
stand up like a king and look everybody in the face — 
in short, take "Casabianca" for his model, be brave 
and speak out like a man. 

"All in vain," said Riley. "When Friday afternoon 
came I failed to appear. There was my hero of the 



56 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



Nile, hinged to his post like Corporal Doubleclick, firm 
as a rock and brave as Mars : 

'Beautiful and bright he stood, 
As born to rule the storm ; 
A creature of heroic blood, 
A proud, though child-like form/ 

There he stood while sailors deserted the sinking ship 
and here was I in Greenfield, the most incurable coward 
that ever had the honor of birth on Hoosier soil; a 
timid, backward boy as I have been a bashful man. In 
some way, unaccountable to me, I was bereft of choice. 
The schoolroom seemed a little firmament, all bright 
with gleaming eyes. I could not keep from blanching. 
Doom came unbidden." 

One of the Fourth Reader incidents borders on the 
pathetic. "My eccentricities," he observed long years 
after the incident when all had been forgiven, "were 
not only the dismay of the schoolroom, but a source of 
great torment to my father whom I loved and respected, 
for all I dodged about a great deal to avoid obeying 
him. We were just beginning the new Reader, and as 
usual I had finished it before the class had read ten 
lessons. There were several poems in the book and 
one of these, 'The Dying Soldier/ I read over and over 
again. I had to cry when I read it." 

Old schoolboys and schoolgirls remember it still — a 
Blue soldier and a Gray, who would never again, see 
"the daylight's soft surprise" — 

"Two soldiers, lying as they fell 

Upon the reddened clay — 
In day-time, foes ; at night, in peace, 
Breathing their lives away." 

Fate only had made them foes. Death leveled all. 



SALAD DAYS 57 

Under the midnight moon and stars — brought face to 
face before God's mercy-seat, a softened feeling rose: 

"Forgive each other while we may ; 
Life's but a weary game, 
And, right or wrong, the morning sun 
Will find us, dead, the same." 

So the sun did find them. The Angel of Love came to 
the battle-plain and mantled their lifeless forms with 
the vesture of peace : 

"And a little girl with golden hair, 
And one with dark eyes bright, 
On Hampshire's hills, and Georgia's plain, 
Were fatherless that night." 

"Well," Riley continued, "the class came to those 
pathetic lines. I knew my place in the class and also 
knew I could not read them before the class without 
tears. I resolved not to cry in public, and since there 
was only one way out of it, I ran away. While the 
teacher's back was turned I slipped through the door 
into the street and had hardly left the schoolhouse when 
I met my father, who of course had immediately to 
know what I was doing away from school. I had just 
read the life of Washington and concluded I would try 
the cherry-tree act. I told the truth, explained to my 
father that I did not want to cry before the school. 
His eyes flashed wrath like sparks from a furnace fire 
I thought that was punishment enough, but when he 
severely whipped me, I experienced a revulsive feeling 
and for several years after I seldom thought of him 
kindly. I don't blame him now. His nature was such 
that he could not appreciate the situation. He doubt 
less thought my explanation an excuse to get out of 
school. But the injustice of it I could not forget." 
The ways of moral mentors, the youthful Riley could 



58 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

not understand. Indeed, it puzzled him when he grew 
to manhood. Why (in substance) he asked, should a 
schoolmaster be thrown into a state of suspense because 
the boy Audubon devoted more time to birds in the 
garden than to books on his desk? What is it in the 
wayward and impulsive natures of boys and girls that 
their elders can not brook? Why is it that fathers and 
mothers so covetously cherish the divine command, 
"Children, obey your parents," and yet find no warm 
nook within the breast for that houseless truth, the old 
Lapland song, that goes wailing through the world : 

"A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts"? 

The sequel to this estrangement from his father oc- 
curred twenty years later. After drifting about here 
and there for a decade, Riley came to try his fortune 
in Indianapolis. "I began to write poetry," said he, 
"and in time became rather notorious for that. The 
people of the city made a great deal of me, and now 
and then rumors of my reputation reached the little 
town where my father lived. He could not see what 
the people saw in those things of mine, no more than 
Mark Twain's father could appreciate the humorous 
antics and stories the author related of himself in Tom 
Sawyer. He could not see why my dialect was worth 
so much money, and finally gave up trying to under- 
stand it. I went out to see him frequently, and one 
day persuaded him to return with me. When we 
reached the city, we went to a clothing store. He was 
pretty well dressed for a country lawyer but not quite 
as well as I thought he ought to be for the city. I 
bought him a new outfit from hat to shoes, and then 
took him home with me to the Denison Hotel. I told 
the landlord we wanted the best room in the house. 



SALAD DAYS 59 

After dinner we walked about the city together. He 
was pointed out to friends as my father. I tell you 
that did me good. It was another proud day in my life. 
Neither of us recalled the misunderstanding of long 
ago." 

The schoolboy's Fourth Reader period was followed 
by the interval of "worthless accomplishments" he 
called his "Dime-novel-and-Byronic-verse age." Both 
home and school forbade those pleasures. In the "Sil- 
houettes" he tells of successful ventures with novels 
in the schoolroom. He attributed his artifice to an old 
desk-mate, but he himself was the "unreadable char- 
acter" he describes. He could secrete things in his desk 
and have them, as he said, "handy as 'good morning.' " 
He had nerve and was the leader on truant excursions, 
as well as the hero of commotions in the schoolroom 
when he returned with a bottle of grasshoppers in his 
pocket. If boys got into dilemmas their "old desk- 
mate" could not get them out of, the case was indeed 
hopeless. He knew all sorts of turns to make and 
"wore his conscience as carelessly as he did his cap." 
He was proud of all emergencies which required his 
advice, and, when enforcing his opinions, had a pecu- 
liar way of impressing his clients on the breast with 
his fore-finger. 

For a while he read novels quite successfully during 
school hours in the manner of Irving's enjoyment of 
Robinson Crusoe, by snatching hasty moments for read- 
ing under the shelter of his desk. He eluded the teach- 
er's eye, he says in the "Silhouettes," by holding the 
tabooed pamphlet on his geography, and that on his 
knee with one hand ever ready to shove the story in 
his desk, leaving his eyes apparently on his lesson. 
One day the movement of his arm or the guilty look on 



60 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

his face led to discovery, and he was waylaid by the 
teacher and punished. Since he defied all rules of time 
and place, he forthwith provided his need with a 
clothes-pin (one of the spring variety) and a rubber 
band attached. Fastening the band to the back 
of his desk inside, he clamped the novel in the spring, 
stretched the band forward for the convenience of the 
eye, and read the alluring pages without fear of detec- 
tion. When the teacher came peaking around, all he 
had to do was to raise his thumb and the rubber 
hid the little old "Prairie Flower" in a jifYy. 

Riley really desired an education, but could not 
find in " the schoolroom the nourishment his 
heart required. He envied the pupils of an 
older time, whose fortune it was to go to school 
to Chiron, who taught them horsemanship, how to cure 
diseases, how to play on the harp, and other branches 
of knowledge, instead of giving instruction in grammar 
and arithmetic. And particularly he envied Jason, the 
athletic youth, who resolved to seek his fortune in the 
world without asking the teacher's advice or telling 
him anything about it. 

Such a failure as Riley's in arithmetic has seldom 
been recorded. "I could not," said he, "tell twice ten 
from twice eternity." History was his bete noir. He 
knew nothing of Columbus, or "the glorious country 
expressly discovered for the purpose of industry and 
learning," as his teacher would have him believe. He 
did not have, as he wrote in one of his prose sketches, 
"the apt way of skimming down the placid rills of 
learning." But he did possess the "extraordinary 
knack of acquiring such information as was not taught 
at school," and, as he was told, had no place in the busy 
hive of knowledge. He knew all about Captain Kidd — 



$ At*A**y ffirhct <&•*%£ fa*~*^r 
r*£ "^C fr*^*< t^*^^ te&GC>> tyr~+~H~ 




The Poet's Handwriting the Year of His Vision 






0W*^L C^Hun^^ i~^^^ 



- ' ...- I 

His Handwriting Twenty-three Years Later 




n 



SALAD DAYS 61 

could sing the history of the pirate from A to Izzard, 
sing it with more interest than his schoolmates sang 
geography. He knew how to slip a chip under the 
corner of the school clock in order to tilt it out of bal- 
ance and time, how to ride a horse face backward, and 
sometimes his story of a gallop to the woods had a de- 
moralizing effect on the "Industrial Hive." 

As might be expected, Nemesis crossed his path. 
The horse ran away and brought his reckless riding 
to an end. As Riley remarked when older, flavoring 
his thought with the humor from "Peter Bell": "Old 
Retribution came down the highway and left me in a 
half -conscious neap at the roadside with 

. . . . 'dim recollections 
Of pedlers tramping on their rounds ; 
Milk-pans and pails; and odd collections 
Of saws and proverbs : and reflections 
Old parsons make in burying-grounds.' " 

Nemesis was present at other times. One winter 
day she was with George Kingry, a burly youth, 
and a half-dozen smaller boys, including the Riley 
lad, while skating on a cranberry marsh. Like so many 
links in a chain, the boys were holding on to coat-tails 
when they crashed through the ice into nine feet of 
water. After floundering about, Kingry caught hold 
of a willow bough and brought his strand of urchins 
to shore. 

"You seem to have repaired to other shrines besides 
Tharpe's Pond," said his clergyman friend, Myron 
Reed, to whom Riley told the incident. "Oh," returned 
Riley, "I was not Apollo's ward all the time." He once 
compared notes with Joe Jefferson. "There are certain 
facts of our boyhood — yours and mine," said 
Jefferson, "about which there can be no mis- 



62 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

take. Evidently we were bad boys and hard 
to manage." On various occasions Riley openly 
admitted he was not a Model Boy. "Symptoms 
of evil," he said, "broke out early on me." He was no 
more a Model Boy on the banks of Brandy wine than 
was Mark Twain on the banks of the Mississippi. The 
latter's allusion to that character is too good for omis- 
sion: "If the Model Boy," says Twain, "was in the 
Sunday-school, I did not see him. The Model Boy of 
my time — we never had but one — was perfect : perfect 
in manners, perfect in dress, perfect in conduct, per- 
fect in filial piety, perfect in exterior godliness ; but at 
bottom he was a prig; and as for the contents of his 
skull, they could have changed place with the contents 
of a pie, and nobody would have been the worse off 
for it but the pie." 

From Mark Twain to Montaigne — Riley once ob- 
served — there is invariably independence of thought 
and action in the youth of men who have left the im- 
press of greatness on their time. Montaigne was 
brought up without rigor or compulsion, brought up, 
as he said, "in all mildnesse and libertie." There was a 
lack of discipline during his impressionable years, and 
that, according to Riley, gave charm to the old French- 
man's life and work. 

In those days of dissatisfaction and rambling 
endeavor, there was one exception, that in con- 
trast to his woes of the schoolroom was as sun- 
light unto lamplight, — the influence upon the Riley 
youth of a friend whose heart and hand were 
ever warm and sympathetic, the "Schoolmaster and 
Songmaster" enshrined in grateful memory, the benign 
monitor of old Masonic Hall and Greenfield Academy. 



SALAD DAYS 63 

It was not in the Hall or Academy however that the 
influence was generative. 

The Schoolmaster became the author of such delect- 
able verse as "The Bonny Brown Quail," "Along the 
Banks of Brandywine," "Moonlight in the Forest," 
and "Crooked Jim." To the youth with "poetic symp- 
toms" he was from the first a positive inspiration. The 
scene of that inspiration was chiefly the Schoolmaster's 
home and vicinity, some two miles from town on Little 
Brandywine. There the pupil found refuge from 
grammar and arithmetic. There he was welcome at 
all hours of the day — and the night, too, for he often 
remained over, that he might have more abundantly 
the inspiration he coveted. He was in the academy of 
outdoor life. He found there, to a large degree, the 
counterpart of the school he had read about in mythol- 
ogy. He had a singer for a schoolmaster, one who 
talked about the birth of Time, the wondrous earth, the 
treasures of the hills, the language of birds, of health 
and the mission of life, and of mysteries that too long 
had been hidden from the knowledge of mankind. In 
that outdoor school, Nature played on "a harp of gold 
with a golden key." Like the lads of old, the youthful 
Riley could lie on the dry leaves of the woods and think 
and dream, and return to the house at night and sleep 
a wholesome sleep. No waste of time in remorse, 
with which life in the town sometimes afflicted him. 
He could grow up to the full height of manhood as 
Jason had grown under the excellent direction of 
Chiron. Alas! the Schoolmaster's instruction did not 
wholly correspond to Chiron's training. It was not 
ideal. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently enchanting to 
make the pupil eternally grateful. 



64 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

The Schoolmaster was a wise guide in reading. He 
gave the youth Cooper's novels and thus lifted the cur- 
tain on American scenery and adventures on the 
frontier of civilization. Bret Harte told him stories 
of dare-devil, impulsive, courageous men, toiling in the 
morning-time of a state — "Bret Harte," the pupil said, 
"the subtlest manipulator of English on the face of the 
earth." Dickens enchanted him. The Master thought 
the pupil should know something of the Waverley 
novels. 

"Read Ivamhoe" said he. 

"I don't like Scott," returned the pupil. 

"Then try Middlemarch" 

"Too sad; I don't like heavy things; I want to be 
interested." 

As the seasons came and went there was communion 
with field and woodland. Hints of a coming poet were 
plentiful — bits of verse here and there on scraps of 
paper and the fly leaves of old books. Often Master and 
pupil strolled together through the "sugar orchards" 
and beyond them into the depths of the wild ; often (as 
the Master wrote) 

"They heard the great fond heart of Nature beat, 
And felt an impulse in the solitude 
To cast themselves in homage at her feet." 

When the pupil became ecstatic over the vales of the 
Elburz Mountains, and the golden prime of old Bagdad 
days, as told in the Persian tale he was reading, the 
Schoolmaster pointed to the enchanted land of the 
present, "right here where we stand," said he, "richer 
fruited than anything Aladdin ever found in the 
wizard's cave. A mightier power than slave of lamp or 
ring waves her wand above the American woods." 



SALAD DAYS 65 

When the pupil became a poet he did not neglect the 
early lesson. "My realm is at home," he wrote; 

"Go, ye bards of classic themes 
Pipe your songs by classic streams ; 

I will sing of black haws, May-apples, and pennyroyal ; 
of hazel thickets, sycamores, and shellbark hickories 
in the pathless woods." 

Longfellow walking with his favorite teacher amid 
the groves of Brunswick did not love him more affec- 
tionately than Riley loved the Schoolmaster. Both 
praised their teachers in prose and verse. Riley's 
tributes in prose were summed up in a brief address 
before an Indiana State Teachers' Assembly, after he 
had passed the meridian of life. There was no diminu- 
tion of gratitude : — 

"My last teacher," he said, "I remember with an 
affection no less fervent than my first. He was a man 
of many gifts, a profound lover of literature and a 
modest producer in story and in song, in history, and 
even in romance and drama, although his life-effort 
was given first of all to education. To him I owe pos- 
sibly the first gratitude of my heart and soul, since, 
after a brief warfare, upon our first acquaintance as 
teacher and pupil, he informed me gently but firmly 
that since I was so persistent in secretly reading novels 
during school hours he would insist upon his right to 
choose the novel I should read, whereupon the 
'Beadle* and 'Munro' dime novels were discarded for 
masterpieces of fiction ; so that it may be virtually re- 
corded that the first study of literature in a Hoosier 
country school was (perhaps very consciously) intro- 
duced by my first of literary friends and inspirers, Cap- 
tain Lee O. Harris of Greenfield." 



G6 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

Notwithstanding the humdrum of his school-days, 
Riley was inclined to think of his teachers as a "long 
list of benefactors." He pleasantly remembered John 
W. Lacy, his teacher in rhetoric. Even "the rigid 
gentleman with green goggles" who lifted him from 
the desk by the ears when he was a boy, and whom he 
resolved to thrash when he became a man — even he was 
given a fraction of his gratitude. 

Riley had a brief schoolroom experience after his 
"reconstruction period" with Captain Harris — so brief 
and incoherent indeed that he seldom honored it with 
consideration. In January, 1870, the new school build- 
ing "was ready for occupation," said the county paper. 
"School opened with 236 pupils." Among them was 
"James W. Riley." Here seems to have been the first 
time he was dignified with so long a name. He chose 
reading, rhetoric and arithmetic. Doctor William M. 
Pierson, a classmate and lifelong friend, observed that 
in rhetoric Riley "did not study figures of speech and 
style ; he delved in the beauties of literature found in 
the quotations." Things went fairly well for six weeks 
when he received a weekly report which brought his 
public school-days to an end. There was a black line on 
the report, "the Black Line of Latitude," said Riley, 
"that ran across my world on the sixtieth parallel. 
Below it was the Pit of Failure, the dark discreditable 
region of reproach and misdemeanors, that kept me in 
a state of suspense from the hour the bell rang till 
dismissal. One day I dropped so perilously near the 
black line in Arithmetic, I quit school forever." Like 
Herbert Spencer, "he could not pass the examination." 
Like Edison, "he did not have the apparatus." 

Prior to quitting school Riley had been chosen editor 
of The Criterion, a school paper to which he gave 



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Physiology 



Spelling 



Geography 



Writing 



History U. S. 



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Algebra 



Reading 



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u u -J 

j§ PS 



68 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

the ambitious motto: "Veni, vidi, vici" It "had 
struggled into existence," he wrote, "under grievous 
disadvantages." The second issue (and the last), two 
dozen pages of foolscap, written with lead pencil and 
bound tastefully in pamphlet form, appeared March 14, 
1870, and as customary was read by its editor before 
a school society. "It was my first venture in the news- 
paper field," said he, in humorous vein years after, 
"but I didn't see anything nor conquer anything. I 
strangled the infant with a dose of verbosity." 

On the last page appeared "A Fragment," which, he 
sportively said, "was my first poetic effort to see the 
light of publication." The "Fragment" mourned the 
decease of the rival school paper, The Amendment, 
whose fate also was to die prematurely: 

"Swiftly and surely 
With a frenzied cry, demurely 
Into the valley of death 

Crossed The Amendment. 

"Quick, like a f o'-hoss team, 
With a Shawnee warrior scream 
Into the boiling stream 

Dove The Amendment 

"Still down and down they pass — ■ 
Green o'er their graves the grass — ■ 
Down in the valley of death 

Lies The Amendment" 

The subject of these pages had now passed into his 
twentieth year. He had come to a crisis in his life. 
Indeed the previous summer, while hoeing in a garden 
with his father one hot evening, he had profited by 
what may seem to some a crisis of minor significance ; 
but it was not a minor incident to him. His faculties 



SALAD DAYS 69 

hungered for expansion in other fields of labor. For 
the first time his father discovered there was granite 
in the son's will. "My father," said Riley, recalling 
the incident, "had moved to the edge of town and was 
tending a garden. He was a good gardener. I was 
poor. Like Rumty Wilfer, I had never yet obtained 
the modest object of my ambition, which was to wear a 
complete new suit of clothes, hat and boots included, 
at one time. I desired to go into 'society/ and one 
evening resolved to make the attempt. I stood before 
the glass, in an old suit and was putting on a paper 
collar and a butterfly tie. My big toe was coming 
through my shoe, and to give my white sock the color 
of the shoe at that point I stained my toe with ink. 
With his usual contempt for 'fashion/ my father looked 
at me from the tail of his eye and said with the curl 
of the lip, 'Well, my son, now that you are ready to go 
into society, we'll go into the garden and hoe weeds/ 
I followed him. After we had hoed a little while, I 
fell behind and grew melancholy and saucy. 'You 
don't seem to like work,' said my father sarcastically. 
'No!' I thundered. Seizing the end of my hoe-handle 
with both hands, I flung it into a neighbor lot, leaped 
the fence and walked down-town, leaving my father 
white with rage. In about an hour I came back. 
Leaning against the fence, I said, 'Father, I am here, 
not to hoe weeds, but to tell you I am sorry I spoke to 
you in anger.' He gazed at me in astonishment. The 
silence was painful. Then he said in a tone of tender- 
ness I had not heard before, 'My son, come down to 
the office to-night. I want to talk to you/ At the office 
we came to an understanding. He went his way and I 
went mine." 

Tradition has it that he ran down an alley from the 



70 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

garden muttering to himself "The Farewell to the 
Farm," a country poet's fiery resolve, — 

"Not to be a farmer, 
Not to plow the sod, 
Nor hop another clod." 

"Was it tradition?" he was asked some thirty years 
after. "Fact and tradition," he promptly returned ; "I 
used language that would sear the walls of a synagogue. 
I resolved never to work with a hoe again — and I never 
did." For several years following, his paternal rela- 
tions were strained — strained at times to a tension that 
was painful — by just such a grievance as that which 
beset Mark Twain and his father. They were almost 
always on distant terms — as Twain said, they were in a 
state of armed neutrality. 

Riley's garden resolution may. seem to some an ab- 
rupt disapproval of farming. Nothing could be more 
foreign to truth. In his sight, a thrifty cornfield was as 
essential to the progress of man as a poem. But there 
were men designed of Heaven for the agricultural pur- 
suit. He was not one of them. He had labored in his 
little solitude long enough. There was budding within 
him "a desire to tread a stage on which he could take 
longer strides, and speak to a larger audience." Or to 
say it as Myron Reed said it : "You can not make a 
prosperous farmer out of Robert Burns. One line of 
power is enough for one man." 

In the spring of 1870, Riley went to work for 
"a shoemaker of renown," affectionately known 
about town as old Tom Snow. He had clerked in the 
store but a few weeks when its proprietor was laid in 
the grave, the store taken for debt, and the clerk thrown 
out of employment. The greatest trial however in that 



SALAD DAYS 71 

year of shadbw, the trial that most deeply affected his 
future, was the loss of his mother, who died suddenly 
one Tuesday morning in August. The bereavement 
caused a complete change in his life. It sent him into 
the world to make his own living, and in numerous 
ways it was a forlorn road he had to travel. 

A few hours after her death he walked alone 
through a cornfield to a favorite retreat south of 
the railroad, an old clearing, where on a later 
day (as will be seen) he received his message from 
the South Wind and the Sun. But on that particular 
forenoon he looked straight up from the tall iron- 
weeds into God's great lonesome sky, — 

"Bowed with silence vast in weight 
As that which falls on one who stands 
For the first time on ocean sands, 
Seeing and feeling all the great 
Awe of the waves as they wash the lands." 

"I was alone," said he, "till as in a vision I saw my 
mother smiling back upon me from the blue fields of 
love — when lo ! she was young again. Suddenly I had 
the assurance that I would meet her somewhere in 
another world. I was gathering the fruit of what had 
been so happily impressed on me in childhood. I had 
seen that the world is a stage. Now I saw that the 
universe is a stage. Another curtain had been lifted. 
My mother was enraptured at the sight of new scen- 
ery. It was the dream of Heaven with which 'Johnny 
Appleseed' had impressed my mother in the Missis- 
sinewa cabin." 

Forward from that lonely hour there was a light 
on Riley's path that ever seemed the refulgence of his 
mother's smile. When the memory of the vision had 
been hallowed by length of years, he left a transcript 



72 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

of it in two delicate stanzas he entitled "Transfigured." 
Childhood and immortal youth were synonymous: 

"A stately figure, rapt and awed, 
In her new guise of Angelhood, 
Still lingered, wistful — knowing God 
Was very good ; 

"Her thought's fine whisper filled the pause, 

And, listening, the Master smiled, 
And lo ! the stately Angel was 
A little child." 

From his cradle his mother's voice had ever been a 
living song of sympathy. There was a poetic charm 
in her name — Elizabeth. Its cadence lingered as tune- 
fully on his lips as the music of love in his heart. Re- 
calling stories of her joy and heroism in days of poverty 
and suffering, her "perseverance under all doubts and 
dangers," he thought of her as the "Little Nell" of the 
frontier — "Little Nell" she was, with the additional 
crown of marriage and motherhood. Like the heroine 
of fiction, she had lead a wandering life. Her parents 
had brought her through a wilderness of wild animals 
and pioneer settlements. From the "Old North State" 
up through the Blue Ridge solitudes she had come, 
through Cumberland Gap and on through the wilds of 
Kentucky — a journey of some seven hundred miles in 
a one-horse wagon. The son dearly loved the tradition 
of his mother's girlhood days in Randolph County. 
He saw her strolling away from her cabin home 
to new scenery in the forest. From her he had 
inherited the spirit of investigation. As her chief 
delight was to trace tributaries and rivulets to 
their sources, so was he joyous when tracing 
threads of thought and action back to their foun- 



SALAD DAYS 72 

tainheads. Her maidenhood on the Mississinewa 
was to him an ideal life. The stream was for her the 
"Beautiful Kiver" that rose somewhere in the Great 
Buckeye Woods and ran merrily by her door. As she 
stood there in the light of morning skies, she was his 
dream of the "Golden Girl," the idyllic Muse that came 
to accompany him the year he caught the vision of his 
mission. 

To have been loved, it has been finely said, is better 
than to have built the Parthenon. Elizabeth Marine 
Riley was loved. She was the heroine of trials which 
are not chronicled in earthly records, but in all ways 
she was upheld and sustained by the ties of friend- 
ship. She was as hopeful as Spring. She augured the 
harvest of universal good. In old Persian phrase (to 
repeat what her son often repeated), "taking the first 
step with the good thought, the second with the good 
word, and the third with the good deed, she entered 
Paradise." 

A turn in the road had really come. The invisible 
Messenger had passed, the mother had gone to a land 
where there are no tears, and home ties had been 
broken. He was no longer a schoolboy but J. W. — > 
sometimes James W. Riley. Fate had denied him a 
clerkship in a store, and he had been, to quote a school- 
mate, "the most celebrated failure in arithmetic in 
the county." Old folks prophesied life failure. "They 
did not think I would amount to much at home," said 
Riley, recalling the days. "Being a lawyer my father 
believed in facts. He had little use for a boy who could 
not learn arithmetic. There were others of the same 
opinion. My schoolmates had an aptitude for figures 
and stood well in their classes. The result was half 
the town pitied me. Again and again I was told I 



74 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

would have to be supported by the family. Something 
had to be done. I knew it — and my father knew it. 
So I went over to Rushville to sell Bibles." The father 
was doubtful of the issue, as is shown in the following 
letter : 

Greenfield, Indiana, 
December 19, 1870. 
My Dear Boy: 

I have been patiently waiting for a letter from you 
and have received none. Scarcely an hour passes with- 
out my thinking of you and wondering how you are 
getting along? how you are doing? and how you are 
managing? I have had much more experience in the 
world than you. It is all important that you associate 
with none but those of good character, that you be 
self-reliant and aim high, and suffer no stain to at- 
tach to your conduct. I would like to counsel and ad- 
vise with you. Please write me fully and confidently, 
and all reasonable assistance in my power I will render. 
We are all well, and have been anxiously looking and 
waiting for you to come home. Somehow I don't think 
your book business is paying but I may be mistaken. 
I hope I am, and would like to know more about it, 
and more about the man who is with you. Don't fail 
to write immediately. I will be absent until Wednes- 
day or Thursday in Hamilton County, defending two 
men charged with murder. 

With a Father's deep solicitude for you, 
I am very truly and affectionately, 

R. A. Riley. 

"It turned out," said Riley, "that citizens of Rush- 
ville had all the Bibles they needed ; they had not time 
to read those they had." So in the first weeks of 1871 
he found himself with a Number 5 paint brush and a 
bucketful of paint under the eaves painting a house in 
Greenfield. "I was not quite so melancholy as Tom 
Sawyer," said he, "but the walls of that house did have 



SALAD DAYS 75 

a far-reaching look like a continent, just as the long, 
un white washed fence looked to Tom." 

Riley had learned house-painting on hot summer 
days a year or so before. "Painting frame houses was 
my vacation," said he. Having become an efficient 
house-painter, he and two associates contracted with 
the trustees to paint the new Public School building. 
"The dome," said Riley, "looked two hundred feet high. 
Being the most nimble, I had to paint it. We attached 
a rope to the pinnacle and with brush and bucket I 
scaled it over the cornice. It was perilous, suspended 
there between heaven and earth. I did not stop then 
to write a couplet. I did not revel in the Rollo Books." 
A friend wrote him that his climbing the paint ladder 
was "typical of the coming man on the ladder of fame. 
There is not much danger," said the friend, gently re- 
ferring to his habits, "while standing on the lower 
round, but beware when your feet stand on the rounds 
near the top. I am anxious to see the day when the 
world will appreciate you for what you are worth, 
but I do not want you to fly the track. Put on plenty 
of sand, and reverse on the down grade." 

His house-painting was the attainment of one or 
two summer vacations. The sign-painting trade re- 
quired more time. Symptoms of his ability in that line 
were seen in his school-days. Very early he developed a 
"knack for drawing." School books, scraps of paper 
and old envelopes bore evidence of his gift. Cunning 
borders and clever tail-pieces were found on almost 
every page. He made sketches with a goose-quill pen. 
With no outside aid, he surpassed the efforts of many 
students under the guidance of masters. He aspired 
to be a portrait painter, "improvised a studio," and at 
the age of fourteen drew a creditable sketch of his 



76 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

father sitting by the fireside. Standing before a mir- 
ror he made a crayon drawing of himself. His sister 
Elva remembered crayons of George and Martha Wash- 
ington, and with what pride he pointed to them on his 
"studio" wall. 

Various suggestions for drawings came from 
Montieth's Geography. One illustration in particular 
he remembered — "Daniel Boone with the melan- 
choly hounds and a deceased deer at his feet." Another 
was the picture of the Hoosier State seal. What the 
lad did with that drawing was afterward worked up 
for amusement into a prose sketch. The pioneer in the 
picture, a stalwart man in shirt-sleeves, was hacking 
away at a tree without deigning to notice the stam- 
peding buffalo. Riley took his "graphic pen and 
mounted each plunging buffalo with a daring rider 
holding a slack bridle-rein in one hand, and with the 
other swinging a plug hat in the most exultant and 
defiant manner." 

Riley learned sign-painting within a year under the 
rambling instruction of a veteran of the trade. His 
father paid the tuition in the hope that it would 
develop into something better for the son, since he 
was making such hopeless progress in the schoolroom. 
To some it seemed a step down the ladder from the 
Academy to a paintshop. The shop, a ramshackle 
establishment near the railroad, was a group of old 
granaries, with their walls full of knot-holes. There 
was an adjoining apartment filled with a family of 
noisy negro children whose father, as Riley phrased 
it, "was the most competent stutterer in the 
county." Riley's course in painting included graining, 
penciling and a few short lessons in landscape. He 
did not "block out" as did the other beginners. He 



SALAD DAYS 77 

simply did the work offhand with an artistic efficiency 
peculiar and pleasing to himself. He measured with 
the eye, but he was as painstaking and exacting as he 
was afterward in the preparation of manuscripts. 
When lettering he often made capitals from graceful 
patterns which he himself had designed. 

That he was soon beyond the aid of his instructor 
was proved by a picture of a greyhound on a sign 
which he painted that "was so perfect, children going 
by were afraid of the dog." Riley's native town began 
to take notice of him. His drawings and his accidental 
jingles were quoted by friends as "proofs of his 
inspiration," though the little circle of skeptics around 
him still prophesied failure. He bestowed on them, it 
is said, something more than the contempt of silence, 
and resolved to prove to his native town that it had 
wronged a man who deserved to succeed. 

Having learned his trade, and having quit school, 
Bible-selling, and house-painting, Riley established him- 
self in a shop of his own. Customers would find him 
"at the head of the stairs, over the drug store." He 
advertised on a large card with pictorial designs, 
which he was permitted to hang in the post-office. This 
caught the attention of the county papers. "Our 
young friend, J. W. Riley," said the Democrat, 
"has a sign for himself that is a credit to him." 
"That sign in the post-office," said the Com* 
mercial, "is attracting considerable attention and 
much merriment." A feature of the sign was 
a silhouetted figure, a lad standing with two 
fingers upraised and outspread — the signal among the 
boys that there was a good time coming at the Old 
Swimmm' Hole. "While waiting for the turn of for- 
tune," said Riley, "I covered all the barns and fences 



78 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

with advertisements. All the while I was nibbling at 
the rhyme-maker's trade, and this was a source of irri- 
tation to my father. The outlook was not encouraging. 
He thought I should devote my time exclusively to paint- 
ing." That the painter made some money by the way 
is shown by memoranda and receipts. These also show 
a demand for him away from home. 

MEMORANDA 

Go to Palestine to-morrow at twelve o'clock to letter 
wagon for L. H. Clayton. Terms $2.50 and expenses. 

Greenfield, Indiana. 
For painting signs for Poulson & Jones, as follows : 

3 doors $5.00 

1 gilt sign, 2 sides $5.00 

1 gilt sign, 1 side $2.50 

1 window blind $2.00 

Total $14.50 

Received payment, 

J. W. Riley. 

"It was holding the wolf by the ears," said he, refer- 
ring to "the time that tried his soles" "Like Jason, 
I had but one sandal to my foot." He went on to tell 
how he was pursued by creditors, but there was more 
humor than insolvency in what he said. "I kept a 
lookout at every alley and corner. If any one looked at 
me I fled like quicksilver. I shifted from place to place, 
like George Morland. I was acquainted with every 
spot of secrecy in Center Township." 

As he drew a worn memorandum book from his 
pocket, a chum asked, "Is that to remind you of a sign 
to paint in Fountaintown ?" "Not exactly," replied 
Riley, "I enter in this book the names of creditors 



SALAD DAYS 79 

whose door I can not pass any more. This dinner we 
have enjoyed on credit to-day at the Guymon House 
closes Main Street. I bought a pair of pumps on State 
Street last week which forbids more buying in that 
quarter. There is but one avenue open — South Street 
— and I shall have to stop that to-night with a bag of 
meal. The roads are closing in all directions and un- 
less my uncle in the Lone Star State sends me a remit- 
tance soon, I shall have to go round by Tailholt to get 
home." 

It has been said that "no background of poverty or 
early hardships can be provided for this poet of the 
people." But this assertion is not supported by the 
facts. "We were poor," said Riley, referring to the loss 
of his father's law practice after the Civil War, "so 
poor we had to move into a cheerless house in the edge 
of a cornfield, our homestead having been lost in a 
luckless trade for land on the prairies." He went on in 
a jocular way to recount his experience with old-time 
house parties, how he had folded his overcoat on his 
arm to hide the rents in the lining, and how he had 
worn his Derby hat wrong side foremost to make less 
conspicuous a hole in the brim. 

In explanation of property losses it is due the father 
to add that he suffered injuries for life from the ex- 
plosion of a shell at the battle of Rich Mountain. The 
consequent loss of power was followed by the loss of 
prestige and property. He had what Goethe's father 
had, "a bent for puttering," but this could not be said 
of him before his injury on the battle-field. 

The poverty of those days must not be construed into 
a state of indigence. As Riley observed on another 
occasion, "We were poor but not pitifully poor. When 
I was a boy there were no very rich nor very poor. We 



80 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



drive through the country in a carriage. A tousled, 
barefooted, bareheaded boy in overalls steps into the 
dog fennel at the side of the road to let us pass, and 
some one remarks, Toor child !' Poor? he is rich; every 
day three meals of potatoes and corn bread and milk — 
freedom, fresh air, miles of landscape, blackberries and 
watermelons in season and walnuts for Christmas. One 
summer while my father was gone to war, we were so 
poor my mother had to pin on my clothing. After a 
splash in the Old Swimmin' Hole, it took the help of 
two boys to pin it on. Yet I was rich. The lads of 
to-day have no such shady bower for splashing as I 
had. Lincoln had a rich boyhood. To be born in a 
log cabin is to be rich. I came within an ace of missing 
it. Had Lincoln been born amid a wilderness of brick 
and lath and nails and mortar, he never would have 
become the Savior of his Country. I once heard a 
speaker say of the cabin in Kentucky that it is now 
lifted and set on one of the shining summits of the 
world — and so it is. Lincoln was a rich man. He lived 
in the American woods. They said it was a mental 
wilderness. It was a mental university. How rich he 
was with that handful of seven books by the cabin fire. 
What value he attached to his visit to this world, every 
day a day of discovery, a new survey of facts and prin- 
ciples, every day reaching out like the wide-spreading 
trees around him for soil and water. I would rather 
see what he saw and loved than see the sky-line of a 
great city." 

Riley always made it clear that he would rather have 
the Lincoln experience than suffer the blight of pros- 
perity. Once after hearing David Swing he contem- 
plated a lecture on "The Sunny Side of Poverty." We 
all have known, Swing had said, some poor girl to 



SALAD DAYS 81 

bend over her sewing and sing far into the night, not 
because sewing and poverty are sweet, but because the 
cares and sorrows of life had been baptized in the 
great flowing river of love. "My mother," said Riley, 
"was baptized in that river. That baptism revealed 
tftie heroic in her — 

Only those are crowned and sainted 
Who with grief have been acquainted. 

In days of prosperity she was beautiful. She was 
heroic and saintly during the war and after, in the 
days of adversity." 

"The poet of the people should wear overalls," Riley 
remarked to a wealthy friend, while winning his way 
to distinction. The remark was not made in jest. 
It was no vain pretense of sympathy for those in 
straightened circumstance. He had met the require- 
ments. He was entitled to his prosperity. He had 
not capitalized his hardships. He had not bewailed 
his fate. He had accepted what the wheel of fortune 
brought him, not always contentedly, but never in a 
vindictive spirit. He observed with much glee 
that it was the loss of a sandal that sent Jason on 
the quest for the Golden Fleece. Thus by joking about 
his lot, the sign-painter endeared himself to his friends 
and ultimately to the American people. "Poverty," he 
affirmed, "is the north wind that lashes men. like Mark 
Twain and Lincoln into Vikings— women like May Al- 
cott, it makes a queen of the earth. She was enshrined 
in the heart of mankind, not because she had to do 
second work including washing at two dollars a week — 
not that. Her history is inspiring because she rose 
above two dollars a week. She smiled at the thumping 
of fate. It made her, as she herself said, a sweet, ripe 
old pippin before she died." 



82 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Though the seasons brought hard times to Riley, his 
signs brought prosperity to others. Like the rustic 
in As You Like It, he was shepherd to other men, and 
did not shear the fleece he grazed. 

"Hart and Thayer 

Hart and Thayer 

All the wool 

You have to spare 

Take it along 

To Hart and Thayer." 

Thus ran the homely jingle on sign-boards nailed up 
on the highways leading into town — "the first rhyme," 
said a thrifty farmer, "that ever stimulated sheep 
growing in Hancock County." It proved to be 
such a hit and brought so much business to the 
firm that other signs appeared on roads farther 
away from the center of trade. "Shilling poetry," 
the farmers called it, and well they might, for it 
raised the price of wool. Rhyme-spinning was 
vying with the song of the loom. Greenfield drew 
trade from neighboring counties to the extent that the 
wool industry assumed the appearance of "smuggling," 
by which was meant the sale of wool in Greenfield that, 
by the unwritten laws of trade, belonged to merchants 
in Newcastle and Shelbyville. Loss to those towns 
seemed to require legislation, or the attention of a mon- 
arch like Edward III to prohibit the exportation of wool 
"under pain of life and limb." "Wool was not a drug 
on the market," a merchant humorously remarked. 
"Flemish weavers began to look our way. Business 
vied with trade from Argentina and the Falkland 
Isles." 

The sign-painter, it may be observed parenthetically, 
was beginning the search for a Golden Fleece, but he 



SALAD DAYS 



83 



had not dreamed of his efforts affecting trade in pure 
bred merinos and Silesian wools. It may also be said 
that his profession was not wholly modern, although 
many features of it were peculiar to his time, several 
originating with him. Nor was the occupation wholly 
commonplace, and certainly it was not menial, even 
though Riley "had but one coat to his back, and that 
had frazzled sleeves and patches on the elbows." Sign- 
boards had been painted by such great artists as Ho- 
garth, Wilson and Correggio. A few years before Riley 
climbed to the roof of the Greenfield school building, 
Archibald Willard, famous for his painting, "The 
Spirit of '76," was gilding wheels and axletrees in a 
carriage factory in Ohio. 

All in all, in this transitional period, Riley was not 
in bad company. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOK'S 

HE WAS fresh and vigorous; he was animated 
with hope ; he was incited by desire ; he walked 
swiftly over the valleys and saw the hills grad- 
ually rising before him." 

This paragraph from an old school Reader gave Riley 
elemental pleasure. "Just to repeat it," said he, "gives 
delight like the music of warblers or the fragrance of 
May-apples." It was from a lesson entitled "A Pic- 
ture of Human Life." He approved the picture, 
drawing the line only on the counsel of the hermit who 
discouraged the indulgence of pleasure. There were, to 
be sure, pleasures that brought dissatisfaction in the 
wake of the disasters attending them ; but there was a 
universe of pleasure that did not end in prostration, 
remorse and suffering. The hermit scorned enjoy- 
ment. He limited travelers to the main road. They 
were not to forsake the common track, which was the 
dusty, uneven way of the plain. They were to forego 
the pleasure derived from the music of birds, the 
sparkle of fountains and the murmur of water-falls. 
To mount a hill for a fresh prospect, or trace the course 
of a gentle river among the trees was to overspread the 
sky with clouds and invite the tempest. 

Riley promptly disregarded the hermit's counsel. 

Poetic natures the world over, he thought, should create 

and discover scenes of happiness. This meant for the 

discoverers release from custom. Without such release 

84 



THE AEGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 85 

the light of their lives was lost. To travel the main 
highway exclusively as the hermit advised, was to 
court mediocrity. It was to impoverish human re- 
sources. The main road for the indifferent, those who 
lost themselves in the crowd ; but when a young man 
had in hi3 heart something that distinguished him from 
the common run of men, he necessarily had to depart 
from the beaten path. The very law of his existence 
meant a new road, to travel onward along which meant 
gardens of pleasure. To enjoy these gardens was not, 
in consequence, to lose the happiness of innocence, not 
to forsake the paths of virtue. One could make life 
picturesque without indulging evil passions. 

Thus it was, as a young man entering "the arena of 
the firmament," that Riley made his own picture of 
human life. In reality there were two pictures. As he 
grew to manhood, these took definite form and became 
paramount in importance, the one blending with the 
other. He divided the world into prose and poetry. 
Whenever what he thought or did related to the prosaic 
side of existence, he was a Pilgrim. From early man- 
hood he desired to write a narrative poem of consider- 
able length to be entitled "The Mayflower Voyage," the 
mission of the poem being to make it a little clearer 
to the readers that his life was just such a voyage. By 
idealizing incidents of courage and self-sacrifice he 
hoped to develop a dramatic narrative that would en- 
noble the perseverance, refresh the faith, and stimulate 
the hope of the people. Although he failed to write the 
poem, he did not fail to experience the Pilgrim's fate, 
"the fate of all men," said he, "who grapple courag- 
eously with the problems of human progress. All 
citizens worthy the name make the Pilgrim voy- 
age, and it is a piece of good fortune that they 



86 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

have to make it. Trial grows character. The lives 
of our statesmen were foreshadowed in the stormy 
passage of the Mayflower. Necessarily they were men 
of sorrows. The Ship of State gave them many sleep- 
less nights. Now, paradoxical as it seems, there are in 
the experience of the poet as in the lives of statesmen, 
days dark as night. His bark, like the Ship of State, is 
often driven through perilous waters. Like the Pil- 
grim, the poet is buffeted by billows within and without, 
lie is destined to follow his star in the pathless way 
through fogs and blinding rain. It does not strain the 
truth to say that he is tossed on frozen shores bleak and 
drear as the coasts of death." 

"Such is life," said Riley, "when yoked to the prosaic 
side of human existence." But there was another pic- 
ture and with it he was enraptured. He was a Pil- 
grim, but chiefly he was an Argonaut in search of a 
Golden Fleece. The glow of feeling in the man in the 
spring days of his genius when he found what he called 
"a wisp of the Fleece," and within it the thread of gold 
for a poem (the climax in the last stanza as all Riley 
readers know), when he found that, his rapture was 
as heavenly as the divinity of youth. Sometimes the 
work of a single night sparkled with jewels, and when 
daybreak came he had the threads for several poems. 
They were the gifts of the gods. Lest he lose them, he 
wrote the stanza immediately, which accounts for the 
singular fact that he often wrote the last stanza first 
when building a poem. 

His Argonautic dream dates back to boyhood when 
he first began to think of life as a voyage of discovery, 
back to the days when Uncle Mart and Almon Keefer 
held the children captive with fairy stories, when little 
"Bud" lay on his back in the shade of — 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 87 

"The red-apple-tree, with dreamy eyes 
And Argo-fancies voyaging the skies." 

The particular book that gave birth to the dream of the 
Golden Fleece was Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales, 
which just then was coming over the Alleghanies in its 
first edition. "This enterprise, you will understand," 
Uncle Mart read from the Tales, "was of all others, the 
most difficult and dangerous in the world. In the first 
place, it would be necessary to make a long voyage 
through unknown seas. There was hardly a hope, or a 
possibility, that any young man who should undertake 
the voyage would either succeed in obtaining the Golden 
Fleece, or would survive to return home and tell of the 
perils he had run." In simple English, writing poetry, 
to say nothing of the quest for Golden Fleece in other 
fields, was one of the most difficult things to do under 
the sun. The youthful Riley however saw not the diffi- 
culties attending the voyage. Children then as now 
were "blessedly blind" to facts such as these. His inter- 
est centered in the galley and the heroes with helmets 
and shields who were willing to row him, if need be, 
"to the remotest edge of the world." Not the least 
among his heroes being Orpheus the harper, who played 
upon the lyre so sweetly that the beasts of the fields 
capered to the music. The dangers and difficulties were 
reserved for the school of experience. 

Tales of other heroes, the Argonauts of Forty-Nine, 
were heard in those days. These kindled in the Riley 
youth the spirit of adventure. His earliest recollec- 
tions were of the gold-fever excitement. Soon after 
1849, the National Road became a westward stream 
of vagrants. The stream passed his childhood door. The 
Overland Route through the South Pass to San Fran- 
cisco was advertised in Indiana communities. Young 



88 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

men having packs and good animals were asked to fall 
into the ranks and cross the continent. They could 
reach gold in one hundred and twenty days. They 
were told the land by the sundown sea was "the 
finest new country of which the human race has any 
knowledge." The lure of the Far West was very great. 
It had drawn Bret Harte to the Golden Gate at the age 
of seventeen. A few years later Mark Twain had gone 
bounding in a stage-coach over the Great Divide to 
Nevada. "It was an assemblage of young men," said 
Twain, referring to the driving population of the min- 
ing regions — "not simpering, dainty kid-gloved weak- 
lings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves, 
brimful of push and energy, and royally endowed with 
every attribute that goes to make up a peerless and 
magnificent manhood. No women, no children, no gray 
and stooping veterans — none but erect, bright-eyed, 
quick-moving, strong-handed young giants — the most 
gallant host that ever trooped down the startled soli- 
tudes of an unpeopled land." 

When a spectacle like that smites the vision of a 
young man, he is likely to lift his moorings and follow 
the adventuring crowd. But the ways of Fortune do 
not all lie to westward. It turned out that the Golden 
Fleece which Riley sought was not on the hillsides of 
the American Fork, nor was California to be his "Land 
of the Afternoon." 

Soon after leaving Greenfield to try his fortune in 
other Hoosier towns, he chanced to hear Bret Harte 
lecture on "The Argonauts of Forty-Nine." After 
that for several years he was dominated by the spirit 
of adventure, although it never led him to distant 
lands. The Hoosier world was large enough. The 
humorous Moral to Roughing It he took seriously: 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 89 

"// you are of any account, stay at home and make your 
way by faithful diligence" 

As he looked out over his native state, he was filled 
like Orpheus with a desire to sing of a wondrous world, 
and how all things spring from love. He talked 
extravagantly of the Golden Fleece. His heart was 
aflame in "The Argonaut," one of his early poems, a 
copy of which he carried from town to town in his 
pocket till it was worn threadbare and lost. He read 
it aloud when he could And a friendly listener. One 
stanza was decidedly Argonautic: 

"And mistily as through a veil, 
I catch the glances of a sea 
Of sapphire, dimpled with a gale 
From Colchis blowing, where the sail 
Of Jason's Argo beckons me." 

As he bowled through the country, he was "a Forty- 
Niner — the blessedest creature on the earth" — but 
never when he thus thought of himself was he a Cali- 
fornia gold-seeker. Always he had in mind the joyous 
year of his birth, and how he had started from the box 
cradle on his life voyage of discovery. 

Riley was a Pilgrim when hampered with the routine 
and cares of business, when struggling with 
debt, when the day was a series of banalities 
and distractions. But he was an Argonaut from 
the cradle, and that picture of human life, like the 
fairy interest in his work, was always with him 
when he was doing what Heaven designed him to do. 
Since he was chiefly an Argonaut, the reader is asked 
to think of him as such in the following chapters — and 
first to follow him in his quest for Golden Fleece among 
old books. 

The records of a Greenfield Sunday-school once in- 



90 JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY 

eluded a report by J. W. Riley, secretary pro tempore. 
He and his companions had wandered into the church 
out of the rain. In the absence of the regular secretary, 
he was asked to write the minutes and if so inclined to 
make some remarks. His report was a rare departure 
from custom, his language being an alarm to the "an- 
cient worthies," the dismay of the ignorant, and a sur- 
prise to all. Never before had those church walls 
echoed a phraseology so verbose and unaccountable. 
On leaving the church, a wide awake member of the 
flock seized the secretary pro tern, cordially by the 
arm and requested him to come again. "You serve 
us," said he, "and sleep-worship in this sanctuary will 
write over the door of its departure the days that are 
no more." It seems that Riley had by design or acci- 
dent found a collection of good old English books. 
Having browsed at will on "that fair and wholesome 
pasturage," he was on that Sunday morning, as on 
other occasions, eager to exercise his new vocabulary. 
It was Riley's fortune to love the beauty and knowl- 
edge he gathered from books for their own sake. 
Like most boys, he began by reading light novels. 
Though they were trashy, he gleaned from them more 
or less information and a knowledge of words. 
Happily, there lived near, a wise mother, Rhoda Hough- 
ton Millikan, who had her own method of lur- 
ing boys and girls to good books. She was not 
alarmed when they began to devour dime novels. She 
placed a copy of The Sketch Book on the center table 
where her son and the "Riley boy" might find it. "Let 
them nibble at it," said she, "and they will come to the 
good books by and by." And they did. After reading 
The Sketch Book, Riley called for more and was given 
The Alhambra, and Irving's biography of Oliver Gold- 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 91 

smith. Thus he ascended the Catskills with Rip Van 
Winkle, thus he was lured to castles in Spain, and thus 
did the author of The Traveller kindle Riley's passion 
for wandering, and acquaint him with the pleasures 
and miseries of the scribbling tribe. 

It was fortunate for Riley that Mrs. Millikan was a 
friend of the best literature. He had once been her 
pupil. She was a woman of heroic type, having reared 
her family of five children after her husband 
had been lost — with other Argonauts — in the Cali- 
fornia gold fields. In her youth she had lived 
near the Green Mountains. Irving was her patron 
saint. When she said, "I love him dearly," the boys 
knew she did. After Riley's first poem had been 
printed in a local paper, she spoke to him of his future, 
recalling what she had read in an old prospectus of 
the first edition of The Sketch Book. "Irving," she 
said, "did not aspire to high honors; it was the dear 
wish of his heart to have a secure and cherished though 
humble corner in the good opinion and kind feelings of 
his countrymen. This, James, was a worthy ambition. 
You can have a similar corner in the hearts of your 
countrymen." 

To Mrs. Millikan (and a London shoemaker, as the 
reader will see elsewhere) is due the credit for opening 
to Riley the door to good literature. She was the first 
of the Greenfield prophets, the first to see in "the 
strange young man" the possibilities of authorship, and 
it was her happy fortune to see him rise to the summit 
of his fame. 

About the middle of the last century a New Har- 
mony philanthropist established in Greenfield the 
McClure Township Library, a collection of three hun- 
dred volumes, including a series on Success in Life, the 



92 JAMES WHTTCOMB RILEY 

Queens of England, Macaulay's England, the Works of 
Washington Irving, the Rollo Books, Cooper's Novels, 
Prescott's Histories, and a full line of the poets. The 
Library had a precarious existence. From its first 
home in the county Court House, it drifted successively 
into the schoolhouse, a boot and shoe store, a grocery 
store, until finally it was scattered among fami- 
lies of the town. But wherever its home, it was 
a Mecca for young Riley. A few histories he read, 
but with little interest. His taste ran to fiction 
and poetry. He read Weem's Life of Washington? 
which in spite of the fables, he said, "is a better 
book than the later lives with the fable left out. 
Lincoln grew up with that book. It is more nutritious 
than the dull chronicle of juiceless facts." 

It may be observed in passing that Riley did not limit 
truth to fact. He liked immensely what Thomas 
Brackett Reed said about it. "Why," asked Reed, "are 
stories of great men invented? Because the truth is 
deeper than the fact." "Truth," said Riley, "is a lim- 
itless realm ; it is universal ; it lies back, around, above 
and below our feeble expression of it and the expression 
great men give it. A thing need not necessarily hap- 
pen in order to be a fact. If it is told exactly the way 
it would happen if it did happen, it is as absolutely true 
as if it had already happened. We are told that there 
was no such Washington as we fable — and it is true. 
In other words we have made and are still making our 
Washington. The Washington the people love is not 
solely the Washington of history, but the larger Wash- 
ington, the cumulative dream of the National Mind." 

In the Township Library Riley also found the Life of 
Daniel Boone, the Siciss Family Robinson, Don Quixote, 
Robin Hood, Robinson Crusoe, and what was to him 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 93 

dearest of all, the Arabian Nights. "Its author was no 
pessimist," he remarked in after years, "although far 
away in the Persian desert. He was the Robert Louis 
Stevenson of his time; he fed the hungry, put a coat 
on the world's back, built a warm fire for its comfort 
and bade it be of good cheer. I can never efface from 
memory the scenes of that book. They have been theme 
and inspiration to me. To this day when I sniff coal- 
oil, it is sweet as violets, for I think of Aladdin and 
the Wonderful Lamp. I see the huge iron door at my 
feet. It is raised for me; I descend the narrow steps 
and pass through the caves of riches and find jewels 
on the trees." 

- But the leaven from the Library, the most generative 
and far-reaching in its effect was The Lives of Eminent 
British Painters and Sculptors, five leather-bound vol- 
umes with a long title, which, as Bill Nye might remark, 
was simplified for talking purposes. "Where's Riley?" 
some one asked. "Oh," answered an old-timer, "he's 
up there readin' them British Books." Thus the vol- 
umes were designated, and affectionately, too, when it 
was known how dearly the young Argonaut loved them. 
They were 

"The pleasant books, that silently among 

The household treasures, took familiar places, 
And were to him as if a living tongue 

Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces." 

When the remnant of the old Library was scattered 
among the Greenfield patrons, by common consent the 
"British Books" became Riley's property, and thus it 
was that he read them again and again. Almost all that 
he accomplished in those years of growing manhood 
was directly or indirectly traceable to the influence of 
those books, and even after his fame was assured, still 



94 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

those household treasures spoke to him from their 
printed pages. In them he found excuses for his con- 
ceits and eccentricities. His interest in grotesque com- 
binations, his sympathy for illiterate people, his love of 
seclusion, his scorn of extravagance, his freedom from 
the shackles of imitation, his determination to reach 
the goal on an individual road — all had a parallel in the 
lives of those British artists. 

"Fair Britannia, ,, a waggish rhymer once wrote, 

"Flung to her right and her left, 

Funny people with wings, 
Among elephants, Roundheads, 
And Cataba kings" ; 

but the funniest, the oddest, the most whimsical of all, 
ihe wag averred, were her children of genius known as 
painters and sculptors. Riley agreed with the wag. As 
he saw it, the artists touched life at almost every con- 
ceivable point. "They were erratic men, hot-tem- 
pered," said he ; "they were headstrong and presumptu- 
ous, they manifested early proofs of inspiration, they 
were divinely interesting, they were good, they were 
bad, they were weak, they were strong, wise, foolish — 
so are men of genius in all times." 

In the "British Books" Riley found Sir Thomas Law- 
rence, who taught that a man should be on good terms 
with himself, the prudent artist who veiled his pros- 
perity that he might have the applause of his friends. 

There was Sir Joshua Reynolds, who held that 
drudgery lay on the road to genius, the painter 
who drew excellence from innumerable sources, 
paid attention to all opinions, and obtained valuable 
hints from the rudest minds. And Cosway, who 
formed good resolutions by day and broke them when 
the lamps were lighted; and Northcote, who had no 







The Poet's Father, Captain Reuben A. Riley 




Old Shoe-Shop 
Wherein the youth learned to love Dickens 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 95 

first out-flashings of genius, but grew slowly up into 
eminence year by year — the artist who all his life was 
afflicted with "false spelling ,, — the youth whose interest 
in Jack the Giant Killer never diminished — the man 
who could never open the book without his eyes filling 
with tears. 

There was Gainsborough, the son of the cloth- worker, 
the "father of modern landscape," and Mortimer, 
frequenting sequestered places on the seacoast 
amid smugglers. And Copley, who refused to offer 
up his time and money on the altar of that expen- 
sive idol, a wife ; and John Flaxman, the little sculptor, 
who showed that wedlock is for an artist's good rather 
than his harm. 

There was William Hogarth, who taught that the 
study of nature is the short and safe way to knowledge 
— Hogarth, the painter of the Distressed Poet, an artist 
famed for his humorous insight, his power of story- 
telling, a genius of the first order, who proved that 
entertainment and information are not all that is 
required of genius, that the public wish to be elevated 
by contemplating what is noble, warmed by the pres- 
ence of the heroic, and charmed and made happy by 
the sight of purity and loveliness. 

So the list continued. There were Harlow, Romney, 
Bird, and Opie — and West, whose fame, though great, 
was not purchased by trials, and hence was not endur- 
ing. There were Bonnington and Blake and Barry — 
all in all, a goodly company for a young man in search 
of a Golden Fleece. The books were stories of good old 
English pluck and heroism, full of folly, of heart- 
sorrow, of obstacles surmounted, of rectitude and re- 
nown. 

The poet's friend, Myron Reed, was always able to 



96 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

see primary significance in obscure incidents that had 
been cast aside by the historians and biographers. 
"Abraham Lincoln," said he, "had some excellent com- 
pany at New Salem — a village loafer, a dry-goods box 
whittler, and an expert black bass fisherman, who knew 
the best books on earth. There is at least one such man 
in every village. Whitcomb Kiley had such a man. 
They do not make or wreck railroads, but they help boys 
to know what to read and what not to read. One of 
them is a small Socrates in a small town." 

The Greenfield Socrates was a jolly Englishman, old 
Tom Snow, "the first man of letters," said Riley, "the 
town ever knew" — a rare old shoemaker who knew 
what elders often do not know, that it is not wise for 
"October to be always preaching at June." Riley 
traced his literary lineage back to the Englishman's 
ancestry in London. Tom Snow was Riley's Old Man 
with a chronic supply of family troubles, who, despite 
them, never grew old, never became "stale, juiceless, 
or unpalatable." His was the roguish face with smiles 
hidden behind a solemn masquerade, 

"While his eyes were wet as dry 
Reading novels on the sly." 

He was the oracle enshrined in the affections of the 
children, the sponsor for good in everything, who kin- 
dled the smiles of youth — and the smile of a poet; the 
hale old heart that brimmed and overran 

"With the strange enchanted sights, 
And the splendors and delights 
Of the old Arabian Nights." 

He was the cobbler of lasting fame, who "seeketh soles 
to save," the jovial shoemaker who was hailed — 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 97 

"For all his goodly deeds — 
Yea, bless him free for booting thee — 
The first of all thy needs." 

"In a little side-show of existence," said Riley at a 
banquet, "Tom Snow was the old man who was always 
worth the full price of admission." He had been a 
member of London literary clubs and had, for those 
days, a vast knowledge of English authors. He was a 
superior reader, having been employed for thirteen 
years to read to "a flock of English shoemakers," his 
chief duty being to explain the text while books were 
discussed. His experience on coming to America was 
similar to that of Martin Chuzzlewitt. He was the 
unfortunate owner of a spongy tract of swamp-land 
near Greenfield. "Standing in the middle of it," said 
Riley, '"he could wobble and shake the whole farm, and 
I was always glad that he could ; nature never made him 
for an existence of trials and privations like that." 
Finding that nothing but calamus would grow on the 
land, the Englishman opened a shoe-shop in Greenfield 
and later established himself in a bookstore, gathering 
under his roof the driftwood of the Township Library, 
which had been first secured through his efforts. 

Rain or shine, hot or cold, the Shoe-Shop was head- 
quarters for all sorts and conditions of village life, par- 
ticularly for young fellows inclined to reading. The 
discussion of books continued as in London. Some- 
times the lads came together to loaf and chatter over 
scraps of town fiction or history; at other times for 
games. It was not unusual to see the Argonaut 
humped up with an antagonist in the corner over a 
checkerboard, marching his platoon of wooden war- 
riors to and fro, and at intervals crooning the silence 
with a "little wind-through-the-keyhole-whistle, while 



98 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

looking for a place where he could swap one man for 
two." 

The youthful Riley's affection for his old English 
guide and instructor deserves to become as proverbial 
as the love of Telemachus for the faithful Mentor. 
Tom Snow was the children's Peter Pindar, — and in 
those days boys and girls were children till they were 
twenty. Hogarth would have been charmed at the sight 
of the modern Mentor telling the Riley boy the story 
of Gog and Magog, the last two of a race of giants 
who were brought to London and chained to the king's 
palace, how the king made them serve as porters, how 
their effigies stood in front of Guildhall, and how when 
the clock on St. Paul's struck twelve they descended 
from their pedestals to go into the Hall for dinner, and 
how they were destroyed in the Great Fire. "That 
story," said Riley, "embellished by his quaint varia- 
tions, gave the Old Man a parquet seat in my affec- 
tions." And the Shoe-Shop, too, was enshrined in his 
love. That was a rare picture of the dear Long Ago, 
when the Old Man read the story of Little Nell, when he 

. . . "arose and from his pack's scant treasure 
A hoarded volume drew, 
And games were dropped from hands of listless leisure 
To hear the tale anew." 

The Greenfield Socrates was a lover of old saws, 
but the foe of all he thought untrue. "Good beginning, 
bad ending : Boys," he exclaimed, accenting the remark 
with his hammer, "it is false. A good beginning is 
half the battle ! Better yet — good beginning, good end- 
ing. Now in reading begin right — read Dickens." He 
had brought from London a full set of his favorite 
author, and the Argonaut, having arrived at the read- 
ing age of discretion, was introduced to the "greatest 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 99 

novelist of the world." He immediately began to satisfy 
his hunger for life as it is. He had not gone far be- 
fore he met the beloved Tiny Tim with his cheery "God 
bless us every one." He was soon aware that Dickens 
knew every street and alley in London, and that his 
novels cover every phase of Anglo-Saxon life. "He is 
the showman of literature," Riley remarked ^when 
older; "he draws the curtain and there are the per- 
formers." Thus was the youth lured among thieves; 
thus he heard the cries of the mob. On he went past 
Toby Veck and Master Humphrey's Clock, down with 
the author into the most degraded corners of the 
Metropolis, among the vilest creatures, through "the 
dirtiest and darkest streets of the world." 

"Hold!" cried the Old Man, "you are reading too 
fast. Take this," handing him Old Curiosity Shop; 
"memorize this," referring to the death of Little Nell. 
" 'When I die, put me near something that has loved 
the light and had the sky above it always/ — where do 
you find anything in books so full of feeling as that? 
Master that and I will teach you to recite it." 

Without knowing it the Shoemaker was extending a 
hand to an American audience a hundred thousand 
strong. The youth to whom he spoke was to rise to a 
shining summit on the platform. He was to rival 
Dickens' public readings in their palmiest days. The 
Shoemaker had been an actor in London ; he knew the 
rostrum requirements, knew when an author was a 
failure in reading from his own works. One of his 
dreams was to take the youthful Riley to hear Dickens 
on the last American tour, and one readily imagines 
the disappointment in the Shoe-Shop when the author 
came no farther west than Buffalo. "We will hear 
Dickens," repeated the Shoemaker, "we will hear him 



100 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

if we have to walk to the Academy of Music through 
a snowstorm." 

For several years after the Shoemaker moved to 
Greenfield, the space round his shop was used as a 
hitching ground for country teams. As a meeting- 
place it rivaled the space round the Court House. There 
from cabins and clearings gathered a company of pio- 
neers to hear the news of the week — unselfish and some- 
times eccentric types of Hoosier life and character. It 
was a fallow feeding ground for a hungry youth, afford- 
ing an opportunity for education seldom equaled in 
the annals of frontier life. There were the "Riley 
Folks," 

"The hale, hard-working people — 
The kindly country people — 
That Uncle used to know"; 

the Loehrs and the Hammonds, Tubb Kingry and Tugg 
Martin, the Griggsby family, the Local Politician, Old 
John Henry, and Squire Leachman, "as honest a 
farmer as ever drew the breath of life," — these and 
a score of others who were later enshrined in the 
poet's verse — upright, reliable freeholders, or men and 
women striving to be such. That there were excep- 
tions to uprightness goes without argument — on off 
days, and rally days, for instance, when the Hominy 
Ridge Clan appeared "with plumes and banners gay." 
Once when the old town happened to have its face 
turned the other way, and the barefoot fellows were 
feeling the worse for their wild oats, they rode their 
prancing steeds up and down the sidewalks, the chief 
of the Clan riding savagely through the front door into 
a hardware store — thereby supplying the community 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 101 

with excitement for a week, and affording loafers an 
opportunity to witness a fine exhibition of English 
wrath when the Clan rode past the Shoemaker's door. 
The Shoemaker deserves our thanks for directing 
Riley to the best literature. When he introduced the 
lad to Oliver Twist, he conferred a favor on posterity. 
What he did added to the happiness of innumerable 
future homes. It meant cheer for the heart-breaking, 
smiles and laughter for firesides in generations to 
come. 

"Creeping on where Time has been, 
A rare old plant is the Ivy green" — i 

thus the gray haired Mentor repeated the couplet, 
gently, "trippingly on the tongue" as the London play- 
ers did — little dreaming that fame would cling to him 
and his Shoe-Shop as the ivy to ruins — little dreaming 
that the Riley youth in the dear afterwhiles would 
voice in "The Enduring," a poem that would add charm 
to life wherever the English tongue is spoken. For 
Mentor and pupil it is a loving illustration of what 
Dickens had told them that nothing beautiful and good 
sees death or is forgotten. 

Riley began to read Dickens before he quit school — 
indeed, he neglected the schoolroom for a course in 
literature at the Shoe-Shop. The influence of the 
novels upon him at that impressionable age is incom- 
putable. He appropriated their language and used it 
till it seemed his own. He was so fascinated with the 
stories that as he grew to maturity, their humor and 
pathos became part and parcel of his character and 
conversation. 

From the Shoe-Shop forward, reading became a re- 



102 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

quirement so essential that Riley seldom left home 
without an old satchel and a half dozen books — "my 
reticule," he phrased it, when a bird of passage. 

While visiting once in a neighboring town he 
found a broken-backed copy of The Task, which held 
him within its grasp for the whole of an April day. 
It contrasted the charms of rural life with the novelty 
and allurements of the town. He learned that Nature 
deceives no student and that wisdom is to be won by 
slow solicitation. He was warned of the fatal habit 
of swallowing what he read without pause or medita- 
tion. As he lay there, face downward, on the bare floor 
of a scantily furnished room, he was fully persuaded 
that he was not "the victim of luxurious ease." "I was 
poor," he said, "not a poor vagrant but a poor bird of 
passage who was rich without knowing it, poor as the 
truant Cowper was poor, rambling on the banks of the 
Thames, subsisting on scarlet-hips and blushing crabs." 

It may seem to some a trifling affection for a genius 
who grew by feeding on Irving, Dickens, Harte, and 
Cowper to care deeply for a series of school readers. 
But so Riley did. No other series of books, in 
his opinion, had so affected the morals and the 
happiness of children. He appreciated to the ut- 
most the sentiment Frances Willard expressed when 
she offered a hundred dollars for a set of the first edi- 
tion. "The compiler," he remarked, "was a genius, and 
deserves a monument from the generation he so signally 
nourished and elevated." His favorite of the series 
was the Fifth Reader, a book many old boys and girls 
will remember, compiled by Professor William H. 
McGuffey of Miami University. Riley loved the book 
chiefly for its poems. "I liked to memorize them," he 
remarked when fifty years old. "If I had the Reader 



THE ARGONAUT AMONG OLD BOOKS 103 

now you would find the pages of poetry turned down 
at the corners, the verses underlined, and the margins 
decorated with sketches — crags, cliffs, landscapes and 
faces." In his latter days it was once permitted him to 
see an old copy of the second edition. He gazed upon 
the homely treasures of its pages with feelings that 
were tenderly retrospective, "feelings that resembled 
sorrow," he said, "as mist resembles rain." 

The compiler of the Readers had chosen his selec- 
tions from the best in all English literature. It 
had been his object, as the preface stated, to present 
"the best specimens of style and especially to exert a 
decided and healthy moral and religious influence." 
The child or the savage orator, McGuffey observed, 
never makes a mistake in inflection, or emphasis, or 
modulation. The best speakers and readers were those 
who followed the impulse of nature as felt in their own 
hearts. 

Perhaps after all Professor McGuffey did have a 
monument in the wide, unrivaled influence Riley 
exerted on the platform. The poet never looked for 
help to schools of elocution. He followed "the impulse 
of nature in his own heart," as the old books directed. 

Every reader, as Longfellow remarked, has his first 
book, that is, one book among all others that fasci- 
nates his imagination and satisfies the desires of his 
mind. Riley had such a book. Other books were near 
and dear to him, the "British Books," the Fifth Reader, 
Oliver Twist, Old Curiosity Shop, and Arabian Nights 
— so that about the Shoe-Shop and Court House he 
was known as "the lad of nine books," probably in re- 
sponse to the tradition that Lincoln was "the lad of 
seven books." But none of these twined their pages 
about his heartstrings as did Longfellow's Poems. It 



104 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

was a current saying in Greenfield that Riley knew The 
Spanish Student by heart. The charm of the poems 
was never broken. He read them with abiding affec- 
tion. They were among the books carried from place 
to place in his "reticule." For thirty years the Cam- 
bridge Edition of Longfellow was his traveling com- 
panion. The first thing to do on entering a room at a 
hotel was to lay the book on the table. It was his mas- 
cot. He did not always read it, but the heavenly 
monitor was always in sight. Whenever he opened it, 
like Longfellow opening The Sketch Book, he also 
opened "the mysterious door which led back into the 
haunted chambers of youth." 

"Longfellow is my poetry Bible," he said. "To read 
him is a liberal education. The beauty of his charac- 
ter transcends everything else. Outside of the excel- 
lence of his poems, his is the sweetest human mind that 
ever existed." 

The Argonaut was now registered among the lovers 
of good books. He had made a fine start although 
he was not yet beyond the luring sway of sidetracks 
and byways. The Golden Fleece was not in sight, but 
now and again he caught a glimpse of shining sum- 
mits ahead. Guideposts were up and the long distance 
ones were pointing vaguely through the mist to a de- 
lectable goal. 

"Behind the curtain's mystic fold 
The glowing future lay unrolled." 



CHAPTER V 

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 

THE tale of the Argonaut now runs to the 
romantic, up hill and down dale with a vender 
of "Standard Remedies," Doctor S. B. McCrillus 
of Anderson, Indiana, the county-seat of a neighboring 
county, and the reader is invited to think happily of a 
holiday spirit that was tolerant of mirth and amuse- 
ment. 

Doctor McCrillus was not a stranger to Greenfield. 
He was cordially interested in Captain Riley, and it 
is due him and the eloquent Captain to digress a mo- 
ment from the regular narrative. 

"Neighbor Derby, shake hands with 'Whit* Riley, 
son of Reuben Riley, the Greenfield attorney/' said the 
Doctor to a farmer one day, while touring the country. 
The farmer manifesting ignorance of the attorney, the 
Doctor's voice instantly rose to the pitch of fervor. 
"Don't you know Reuben Riley, Captain Reuben A. 
Riley ? He is the most eloquent man in the state." 

This was not said in jest. The Doctor had listened 
to a few celebrated pioneer preachers. He had on 
several occasions heard Morton, Indiana's "War Gov- 
ernor," Richard Thompson, Dan Vorhees, and other 
political torch-lights of his time ; but "not one of them," 
said he, "can hold a candle to the eloquence of Captain 
Riley. I repeat it: Reuben Riley is the most eloquent 
orator in the state." This may have been an exaggera- 
tion, but it was not one to the Doctor. There were a 
105 



106 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

score of old patriots in Greenfield who said the same. 
As eminent an authority as Horace Greeley, who had 
heard the fluent Captain in the Fremont campaign, held 
a similar view. The Doctor had a theory that the great- 
est speeches go unrecorded. "They are traditions," 
3aid he, "and several Riley speeches belong to that 
class." He had heard the Captain at a memorial meet- 
ing a few days after Lincoln's assassination. He re- 
called the indefinable poise of the orator, the flash of 
his dark eye, and the magical effect of his gestures. 
The eulogy so impressed him that after the lapse of 
half a lifetime he could recall the solemn images of the 
occasion as they appeared "in their morning luster." 
Old residents of Greenfield refer to it as the "Lost 
Speech." The Doctor remembered that the eulogist 
prefaced the speech with two texts, one from Cowper 
and the other from the Bible ; the first — 

"God moves in a mysterious way 

His wonders to perform ; 
He plants his footsteps in the sea, 
And rides upon the storm" : 

and the second, "I will make judgment the line, and 
righteousness the plummet: and the hail shall sweep 
away the refuge of lies and the waters shall overflow 
the hiding place." "When Captain Riley spoke," added 
the Doctor, "you knew God moves in a mysterious 
way. You could see Him in the tempest, in the flames 
of devouring fire; you could hear Him in the earth- 
quake." 

One brief paragraph of the speech remains ; the re- 
mainder was the gift of inspiration under the spell of 
the occasion. "Never," the orator wrote on an envelope 
a moment before rising to speak, "never in the history 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 107 

of recorded time has the transition from free, exultant, 
forgiving, universal joy, been so quick, so sudden, to 
universal gloom and sorrow. We rejoice with joy un- 
speakable at the realized salvation of our government. 
We are stricken with horror dumb, with dark fore- 
bodings, almost with despair, at this blackest crime 
against the nation — against humanity — the assassi- 
nation of Abraham Lincoln." 

After he had finished, the orator sat down in the 
silence and wept with the crowd. He had opened the 
fountains of universal sorrow. A comrade in tears re- 
minded him of a battle-torn flag returned from the war, 
which was to share the honors of the day. Promptly 
rising to the occasion, he paid a tribute to the Stars 
and Stripes that brought the audience to its feet with 
enthusiasm as uncontrollable as the silence that fol- 
lowed the tribute to the dead President was profound 
and sorrowful. 

Since the poet's grandmother Riley held the people 
captive in camp-meetings, and since his father was the 
peer of the most eloquent men in Indiana, it would 
seem that Doctor McCrillus had ground for attributing 
the poet's success on the platform to heredity. "The 
poet was a descendant of speech-makers," said the 
Doctor. "Never a pose before the footlights, never 
a gesture or smile that could not be traced back to the 
eloquence of his father." 

The Doctor was a man of warm sympathies but in- 
clined at times to eccentricity. His long, white 
"breezy whiskers" were a part of the landscape. 
As Mrs. Spottletoe would say, they were the lode- 
star of his existence. "On a clear day," said Riley, 
"you could see them from Hardscrabble to Point Isa- 
bel." Although widely known for his quaint ways and 



108 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"old-school oddities," he was not an average drug ped- 
ler by any means. Nor did he make average claims for 
his "Standard Remedies." He allowed the great public 
to be the judge. "His marvelous brews and concoc- 
tions," said Riley, "relieved every form of distress 
from 

The pinch of tight shoes 
To a dose of the blues" 

Riley started out with the Doctor on the "Standard 
Remedy" excursions in the summer of 1872 and con- 
tinued with him irregularly for two years. On the road 
into Greenfield the Doctor had seen some fine 
examples of sign-painting on the Fair Ground 
fence, advertising the Farmer's Grocery and other 
merchants of the town. While he and a young travel- 
ing recruit whom he had already enlisted were stand- 
ing by their wagon near the Court House, they "were 
approached," said the Doctor, "by a verdant looking 
young fellow dressed in overalls, who was hunting 
work. I noticed the overalls for my other sign-painter 
wore loud clothes." 

"Do you need a sign-painter?" he asked. 

"I have one," replied the Doctor; "there he is; shake 
hands with James McClanahan." 

But the man in overalls was in earnest. He hoped 
that the outside world would yield him favors his 
native town denied. 

"Have you seen any of my work?" he continued. 

The Doctor had not seen it. 

"How did you come in?" 

"By the Fair Ground." 

"Did you see some large signs there on the fence?" 

"Yes," answered the Doctor. 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 109 

"I made them," said Riley. 

The Doctor now being interested assured him he had 
never seen work in that line so skilfully done, and in- 
quired his name. 

"James Riley," was the reply, "Jim Riley, they call 
me round town." 

"Any relation to Reuben Riley?" 

"My father," answered James. 

That he might consider young Riley's proposal a 
few moments longer, the Doctor turned aside to deliver 
some "Remedies" to the drug stores while the two sign- 
painters began a friendship that was never broken. 
Riley took his new friend to see other samples of his 
work, among them the large advertising card in the 
post-office. Before returning to the wagon the Doctor 
went to the law office of the elder Riley, with whom 
he talked a few minutes on current issues, not neglect- 
ing to compliment the attorney on the "Lost Speech" 
and other efforts of like nature. 

"Your son James wants to travel with me," he re- 
marked as he rose to go. 

"My God !" cried the father, not bitterly but sorrow- 
fully ; "if you can make anything out of him take him 
along." 

For two years or more the father had been in doubt 
about his son's ability to make a living. The Doctor 
ventured the opinion that the son had merit. "There 
must be something to him," he said; "you forget; he 
is the son of Reuben Riley." 

This compliment pleased the father greatly, so they 
quickly agreed that since the son was of age he 
should be the architect of his own fortune. The com- 
pact the Doctor made for the son's service was, in part, 
word for word, Mrs. Jarley's agreement when she em- 



110 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

ployed Little Nell to point out her wax-work figures 
to the spectators. And it was "open air wagrancy," too, 
although occasionally the Doctor did exhibit his wares 
in town halls, taverns and vacant store-rooms. As to 
salary (readers of Dickens will remember) , Mrs. Jarley 
could pledge herself to no specific sum until she had 
sufficiently tested NelPs abilities and watched her in 
the performance of her duties. But board and lodging 
she bound herself to provide, and she furthermore 
"passed her word" that the board should always be 
good in quality, and in quantity plentiful. Precisely 
such an agreement the doctor made for the services 
of young Riley. He promised fried chicken at farm- 
houses whenever the "Remedy" show was in the neigh- 
borhood of dinner bells. 

"You are going with us, James," said the Doctor 
as he approached the wagon ; "we have a few deliveries 
to make; be ready when we return — have your Sun- 
day clothes packed." 

"I haven't an extra coat to my back," was the gay 
reply. What did Riley care about a change of clothes 
in June, when he was building a bridge into Wonder- 
land? 

So, a few days later, the three birds of passage 
climbed to their high seats on the wagon and drove 
away north on the Pendleton road, behind a glossy 
span of sorrel horses that "in their perfect beauty and 
symmetry, high heads and tossing manes," as Riley 
characterized them years afterward, "looked as though 
they were just prancing out of an Arabian dream." 

"Instantly," said Riley, recalling the wayfaring days, 
"I started on my voyage for the Golden Fleece. It 
was delightful to bowl over the country. My blood ran 
through me like a gulf-stream. I laughed all the time. 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 111 

Miles and miles of somber landscapes were made bright 
with merry song and when the sun shone and all the 
golden summer lay spread out before me, it was 
glorious. I drifted on through it like a wisp of thistle- 
down, careless of how, or when, or where the wind 
should anchor me." 

He was twenty-two years old, but in habit and 
appearance several years younger — an original young 
man, full of fire and faith but devoid of the experience 
which comes from traveling. His neighbors did not 
take hirn for a poet, although he looked out of large, 
thoughtful eyes. He was compactly built, had a full 
face and fair complexion, reminding one of a way- 
ward college boy whose mind was on pranks instead of 
books. He was generous to a fault and modest as a 
girl of fifteen. 

At Anderson there was a halt of three weeks to make 
preparations for a lengthy excursion. The Doctor had 
previously vended his "Remedies" only in neighboring 
counties. Now that he had another sign-painter, and, 
as was soon discovered, a minstrel and theatrical per- 
former as well, he would carry his message to remote 
districts. Anderson was to be the hub of his travels, 
and, as it turned out, for a few years the rival of Green- 
field in claiming the residence of the poet. 

Impressions of Riley's new home on White River very 
naturally crept into his letters. "Anderson," he wrote 
a year or so later, "is a very handsome little town of 
about five thousand inhabitants — good people, speaking 
generally, although of course it takes all kinds of people 
and so forth. Vice is not as rampant here as in days of 
old. It grows weaker every day, and religion and law, 
hand in hand, are fast driving it from the land. If the 
city has one blight, it is its Court House. That really 



112 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

looks out of place and uncomfortable, surrounded as it 
is by beautiful business blocks ; and I sometimes think 
it is a pity it could not attend the Old Settlers' meet- 
ing, for it could go farther back than the oldest inhabi- 
tant and tell of the youthful prowess of Indiana, espe- 
cially of the Indian chief, Anderson, for whom the town 
was named. One can almost hear the old-time war 
whoop echoes lurking around in its misty, time-dimmed 
architecture." 

Soon after his arrival in the town, Riley designed a 
special trade-mark for the "Popular Standard Reme- 
dies," a work which required three days of experiment 
and ingenuity. "Your Oriental Liniment," said he to 
the Doctor, "is advertised 'best on earth/ and your pa- 
trons must be protected against fraud and imposition. 
Your circular says 'good for sprains and bruises.' Add 
'bee stings/ " The apiarian disorder was accordingly 
listed and there resulted an increase in business. 

Riley also won local recognition by painting a huge 
sign on the Court House fence. Chief interest however 
centered in a "hummer" — in rhyme — painted at the 
corner of Meridian and Bolivar Streets, which drew 
from the Weekly Herald the opinion that the "Painter 
Poet" had immortalized a popular jeweler of the town. 
School children repeated it trippingly : 

"We would advise you all to see 
The sparkling Gems and Jewelry 
At John A wait's and be content 
To know your money's wisely spent 
At his immense establishment." 

The preparation for the "Standard Remedy" wander- 
ings included a long spring wagon made in Ohio, from 
which fact it received its name, the "Buckeye." The 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 113 

wagon was equipped with buffalo robes for cool days, 
and three big boxes covered with leather for protection 
from rain — one box under a high seat in front and two 
larger ones back of it with a small box and seat-pad on 
top, 

"Where the sign-painters sat 
To giggle and chat — 
With their feet high and dry 
And their heads in the sky." 

For that day it was an imposing spectacle with the 
Doctor's "breezy whiskers" and the merry pair of 
painters back of him, their hats on one side, spinning 
down "the grooves of time," behind a span of horses 
sniffing the wind. Those fiery steeds possessed the vir- 
tues of Bucephalus. They were as fleet as any 

"That ever cantered wild and free 
Across the plains of Araby." 

Sometimes the "Buckeye" carried a thousand dollars' 
worth of "Remedies." Usually a trip consumed two 
weeks and frequently covered a distance of two hun- 
dred miles. One of the first midsummer excursions 
led out by way of Middletown, Hagerstown and Cam- 
bridge City, on down to the White River Valley, re- 
puted by Riley, and artists after him, to be "the most 
beautiful spot on God's earth." Another excursion led 
to the northwest, through Alexandria, Elwood and Ko- 
komo, to "the banks of Deer Creek." When sales were 
numerous the Doctor traveled but a few miles a day. 
Driving into a town he would leave two or three dozen 
bottles at the drug store and soon thereafter, half a 
mile out, a new sign appeared : "Go to Manaf ee's for 



114 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

McCrillua Popular Remedies." He also sold to farmers 
while the sign-painters nailed sign-boards to trees and 
gate-posts. The company, preferring the farmer's hos- 
pitable board to the hotels, often remained over night 
in the country. Fried chicken was the rule on crisp au- 
tumn days, if the poet and his chum could iind one 
roosting on the manger when they went out with the 
farmer early in the morning to feed the stock. 

Cool spring water was also the rule. Sweeter draughts 
were never quaffed than those which flowed from the 
mossy brim of the oaken buckets chained to the "well- 
sweeps" of that time. The presence of giggling coun- 
try girls always afforded merriment. The rural pic- 
tures were never wanting in interest if the travelers 
could stay their winding pilgrimage, 

"Then go their way, remembering still 
The wayside well beneath the hill." 

An excursion westward led as far away as the river 
counties of the Wabash. One day the Doctor became 
reminiscent. Something reminded him of a rich bach- 
elor he knew, who went to Illinois to buy land of a 
widow, who, the bachelor discovered on reaching her 
door, was the girl he had loved when she lived with his 
mother on a farm in Ohio. Thus the Argonaut found 
the thread of gold for a ballad, "Farmer Whipple — 
Bachelor," which soon saw the light in the "Original 
Poetry" column of the Greenfield Neivs. 

Riley did not travel down the river as far as Old 
Vincennes, but far enough for his fancy, a few years 
later, in the guise and dialect of a pedler, to canvass 
the counties for a patent churn. This lively picture 
from his poem, "Regardin' Terry Hut," is mainly per- 
sonal experience: 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 115 

"I've travelled round the grand old State 
Of Indiany, lots, o' late ! — 
I've canvassed Crawferdsville and sweat 
Around the town o' Lafayette ; 
I've saw a many a County-seat 
I ust to think was hard to beat : 
At constant dreenage and expense 
I've worked Greencastle and Vincennes — 
Drapped out of Putnam into Clay, 
Owen, and on down thataway 
Plum into Knox, on the back-track 
Fer home ag'in — and glad I'm back! — 
I've saw these towns, as I say — but 
They's none 'at beats old Terry Hut!" 

It is interesting to note the poet's play of fancy 
around the "old churn." It appeared in one of his 
first poems to receive eastern recognition, then en- 
titled, "A Destiny," in which a farmer chased a scrap 
of paper over the fence and across the field, and cap- 
turing it, scratched his head and pondered over a rhyme 
and the pencil-sketch of a dairy maid under it, and then 
with the complacency of ignorance saw through the 
whole business of dreaming and poetry : 

"I see the p'int to the whole concern — 
He's studied out a patent churn !" 

Strictly speaking the churn was a sieve patented by a 
'^country poetf' of Hancock County, the "corduroy 
poet," Riley sometimes called him, and at other times, 
Professor Startailer or the "seersucker poet." The 
patentee, all aflame with the prospect of a fortune, sold 
territory for the sale of the sieve, to his friends. "He 
let us in on velvet," said Riley; "a friend and I bought 
two border counties near Ft. Wayne. I still have 
Adams County," he laughingly averred forty years 
after. 



116 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

In the preface to his first book, Riley pleasantly re- 
called the "country poet/' but he did not pleasantly 
remember the inventor of the sieve. A few years after 
buying Adams County, he got his revenge by using the 
inventor's name as a nom de plume in a weekly paper. 

After the lengthy excursion on the Wabash, the 
medical troupe made a short one nearer home. The 
sign-painters ingeniously manifested the "holiday 
spirit" one evening at Cadiz, a small town in Henry 
County. Breezes blew from the Blue River hills, wood 
fires flamed on the edge of the forest, lamps shone 
dimly from the street corners and tin lanterns hung 
in the trees. The village that midsummer night was as 
bewitching to Riley as Cadiz, the city of beauty and 
love in sunny Spain, was to Longfellow. If the daugh- 
ters of Spain were matchless in grace and figure, so 
were the bright-eyed maidens of the Hoosier hamlet 
fair and charming. The little town, surrounded by 
dense woodlands, was to Riley the Dreamland of the 
frontier. He was in the mood to enjoy it; so were the 
villagers. They were as gleeful as the peasants and 
cavaliers of Longfellow's Spain. 

The medical troupe revived happy memories. The 
Doctor had been in Cadiz the previous summer. "I 
have now returned," said he, "with a menagerie" (re- 
ferring to his two sign-painters) . "They are showmen 
from the circus — just canvassing temporarily for Euro- 
pean Balsam." The "menagerie" summoned a youthful 
company from every nook and alley. Plowboys and 
country lassies came from the farms. They were "light 
of heart and heel," and responded merrily to the music 
of the French harp and guitar. A side-show was im- 
provised in the middle of the street. Riley strapped an 
empty soap box to his shoulders, turned a crank in 






OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY _ 117 

imitation of an organ-grinder and played the French 
harp while his chum called attention to the Wild Girl 
from the Congo (a local merry-maker), who, in torn 
garments and long-disheveled hair, at the opportune 
moment, rose like a phantom from the deep box on the 
wagon. She was the Savage Wonder, and volubly did 
the showmen describe her strange ancestiy and the 
African jungles where she had been captured. 

A novel feature of the evening came when Riley 
wrapped his traveling chum in the buffalo robes and 
led him on all fours around the wagon and then told the 
story of a "Little Boy who went out into the woods to 
shoot a bear." The alarming "Woo-oah," the great big 
sycamore tree, the four broken legs when the boy 
chopped off the limb and the bear fell "clean to the 
ground" — all were there, soon to be elaborated into the 
famous "Bear Story," which in due time became a 
favorite number in the poet's public readings, and the 
delight of children who read the "Child-World" a gen- 
eration later. The little crowd chuckled at the men- 
tion of "sycamore tree." Every lad present knew it 
was all but impossible for boy or bear to climb one — 
a fact which many older heads in the poet's audi- 
ence of a later period did not know. The bear could 
climb an oak or poplar, but not a sycamore tree — and 
that was the "nub" to the story, which made the inno- 
cent ignorance of the "Little Boy" charming and true 
to life. 

Up to this point the performance had been crude — 
but about ten o'clock the voice of the tenor rose to 
the realms of art and the joy of the audience to the 
plane of rapture. Friends brought Riley a guitar, 
borrowed for the occasion. At last the hour had come 
for the instrument to respond to the touch of a master. 



118 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Such harmony the Blue River hills had never known. 
'•'That fellow," said a barber, whose shop was near, 
"will have to stop playing or I'll have to stop shaving." 
None there had heard minstrelsy half so sweet. It was 
clear to them that night, as it was always clear to the 
performer, that when a master "tangles his fingers in 
the strings of a guitar there is an indefinable some- 
thing in its tone that is not all of earth." 

One week in autumn the medical troupe found itself 
far away on the St. Mary's River, near the Ohio 
state line. "We are going home to-day, boys," said the 
Doctor. It was eighty miles, but there was something 
in the speed of the sorrels that said they could make it. 
Sales had been unusually good, and the Doctor had by 
trading filled his boxes with dry goods, groceries and 
hardware. 

On that notable trip, Riley was a veritable Tom Pinch 
seeking his fortune. Unlike Tom on the London coach, 
he did not pass "places famous in history and fable" ; 
but he witnessed new scenes. He made discoveries. He 
was a spectator of nature and of men's fortunes and 
how they played their parts. He saw things "as from a 
common theater." That joyous ride was for years the 
theme of his narrative. Although his "bump of local- 
ity" was as inefficient then as it was afterward, he saw 
things and remembered what he saw. John Hay was 
w6nt to say that his vision and the vividness and accu- 
racy of his memory were the secrets of his success. If 
it were a question of vision (omitting the element of 
place) he could trace back the eighty-mile run link by 
link. His indefinite purpose added zest to it. "I was 
driven by the uncertain currents of existence," he 
said, "yet the novelty and uncertainty of it were posi- 
tively ecstatic." Like Walter Scott, he was makin' him- 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 119 

self a' the time but did na ken maybe what he was 
about till years had passed. 

They left the river at a place called The Devil's Race 
Ground. The morning was crisp and bright, and the 
sorrels were homeward bound. The Doctor held the 
lines — "eighty breezy miles were written in his very 
whiskers." The sign-painters were at the top-notch 
of being. As they sped onward the poet's heart "ran 
riot with the Muse," and his chum accented the pleas- 
ure at every turn in the road. They were two merry 
boys 

"Full of fancy— full of folly- 
Full of jollity and fun, 
Like the South Wind and the Sun." 

There was enough medley in the day (in the words of 
Pope) to "make their souls dance upon a jig to 
heaven." On they went, voyaging with the thistle- 
down, south by west, a swift Lake Erie wind at their 
backs, their cheeks flushed like winter apples, sailing 
away under fleecy clouds, — past hedges — past country 
wagons — past sinewy woodsmen — past rosy-cheeked 
schoolboys — rumbling over culverts — over gurgling 
streams — over the "underground railroad" — past ducks 
and geese and the peacock on the sunny side of the barn- 
yard — down a steep incline across the Wabash at Buena 
Vista — round the Loblolly Swampland — round Sugar 
Island — past prehistoric mounds — past morning-glory 
vines climbing over cabin homes — past the dimpled 
cheeks of babyhood — past dog-fennel beds, gravel beds 
and through spice-brush ravines on to Pennville. There 
they cooled the horses' hoofs in the Salamonie, and there 
the poet saw 

"The hills slope as soft as the dawn down to noon 
While the river ran by like an old fiddle-tune." 



120 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Out of town again. Mark Twain, traveling in the 
stage-coach across the plains to see strange lands and 
wonderful people, was not more animated. Onward 
bowled the "Buckeye" past the haymakers, the new- 
mown clover and the long windrows reaching like mo- 
tionless waves from end to end of the field — under the 
gnarled willow tree where barefooted children fought 
and clung to the swing, "waitin* fer the cat to die" — 
past the raising bee and the log barn springing up "at 
the wagging of the fiddlestick" — past stake-and-rider 
fences — past log huts and their stick-chimneys — from 
Pennville to the Panhandle Route, where the poet saw 
the "iron horse tugging away at a row of freight cars 
long as Paradise Lost" — then down the line a mile to 
Red Key to joke with the operator while a farmer 
thrashed the baggage-smasher — across the track for 
refreshments with the restaurant man whose luscious 
viands had been the talk of the town ; where (in Riley 
rhyme) 

"Strawberries blushed with a rosy gleam 
On islands of sugar in oceans of cream ; 
And the lips of the maiden were tinged with a glow 
The kiss of a lover could never bestow." 

Then a detour of the Pioneer Fair, where Riley 
caught a glimpse of Grandfather Squeers and the old 
settlers about him, like the trees, repeating their rustic 
legends to one another. But the crying babies and El- 
viry at the organ awkwardly feeling her way up and 
down the keys for the "Vacant Chair" and the "Old 
Camp Ground" were more than his sense of melody 
could stand. The sorrels, too, were restless. It was 
two o'clock and they had not reached their half-way 
point. Westward-ho down the road again by the race- 
track to see the "side-wheelers" pace neck and neck 




The Mother's Girlhood Home on the Mississinewa 




6W 



■i-MaN 






I 



IIH0«MT.1 




Anderson, /ma 




Standard Remedy Trade-mark 
Designed by Riley 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 121 

"twixt the flag and the wire" — now gazing on the 
purple haze that hung over the valley where the river 
flowed — now skirting sunny glens where the bees 
droned their honey-song in the golden-rods — threading 
the winding seclusion of the river road — fording the 
creek near the rustic bridge of Wonderland — alighting 
a moment at the Indian spring for a draught 

"From the old-fashioned gourd that was sweeter, by 
odds, 
Than the goblets of gold at the lips of the gods !" 

On down the old Muncie Trail through the sumac 
thickets with visions of superstitions, powwows, and 
Red Men smoking the fragrant kinnik-kinnik — through 
the grapevine wilderness known to the oldest inhabitant 
as the feeding ground of passenger pigeons that then 
as in the days of Audubon "glided aloft in flocks and 
spirally descended to sweep like the wind among the 
trees" — on through enchanted aisles 

"Adown deep glades where the forest shades 
Were dim as the dusk of day 
On the Mississinewa." 

Magical name for Riley! Long had he cherished it 
in memory as the girlhood home of his mother. 

The dawn of recollection for him dated from a mem- 
ory of his mother's dewy blue eyes when he stood by 
her chair near their log-cottage lire while she told him 
the stories of the long ago on the Mississinewa. Ten- 
derly he alluded to it afterward in his poem, "Envoy": 

"Then the face of a Mother looks back, through the 
mist 
Of the tears that are welling ; and, lucent with light, 
I see the dear smile of the lips I have kissed 
As she knelt by my cradle at morning and night." 



122 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

There are periods in the life of every poet when the 
enjoyment of a week is narrowed down to the ecstasy 
of an hour. Such an interlude was Riley's while thread- 
ing the wonderland of the Mississinewa. From that 
hour until midnight his heart was athrill at the ease 
with which his ideas found birth and expression. The 
trees were harps of melody. The very fence panels 
flowed along the wayside in poetic meter. On he went 

"Down the current of his dreams, gliding away 
To the dim harbor of another day," 

the jingle of his rhymes keeping time with the jingle 
of the bridles — past the wake of the hurricane where 
"the voice of the Lord had broken the cedars" — through 
the mellow gloom — through the smoke where the wood- 
peckers hammered the dead limbs in the clearing — past 
cow-bells clinking sweeter tunes than "Money Musk" — 
past squadrons of wild turkeys gobbling in the woods — 
past red and yellow tomatoes on the garden fence — past 
the campaign grove where the candidate squandered his 
spread-eagle rhetoric — past the Greeley flagpole with 
its streamer flying to defeat — past bushwhackers — 
past the circuit rider on his way from the basket meet- 
ing — down the Bee Line racing with the "cow-catcher" 
on the Accommodation Train — past the cider mill and 
apple tree, the country frolic which drew obliging fam- 
ilies together when the fruit was to be harvested — past 
the Orchard Lands of Long Ago, 

"Catching the apples' faint perfume 
And mingling with it, fragrant hints of pear 
And musky melon ripening somewhere." 

"And then the ride," said Riley, "into the saintly twi- 
light, toward the clouds in the west that hid the silver 
sickle of the moon with their dusky locks. How inex- 






OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 123 

pressibly divine was the drapery of the night that de- 
scended upon us." There were sparks from the horses' 
hoofs as they accelerated their speed. There were mam- 
moth castles and battlements across the fields, for so the 
woodland shadows seemed. Then came the sudden 
shower that silenced the katydids, and then the ride 
through the thunder and the rain — 

"And still the way was wondrous with the flash of hill 

and plain — 
The stars like printed asterisks — the moon a murky 

stain." 

Eighty breezy miles — one hour as the aeroplane flies, 
but sixteen for the "dazzling speed" of the sorrels. 

An early poem dates back to this eighty-mile run. 
The sorrels and a little thread of gold from the "En- 
gineer" (a short story by Mary Hartwell in the House- 
hold Magazine) prompted the "Iron Horse," the poem 
which subsequently drew a note of praise from Long- 
fellow. "The engineer and his iron horse and his row 
of baggage cars and passenger coaches rushed across 
the land" — so ran the hint in the magazine. Driving 
through the country the poet bantered the Doctor about 
his sorrels, challenging him to rival the flaming steed. 
"You can stir up the dust," said he, "and shoot the 
rapids at the toll-gates, but the path of my steed 

Spins out behind him like a thread 
Unravelled from the reel of time." 

The trip to St. Mary's River furnished suggestions 
for other poems, not that Riley then wrote them, but 
the incidents were tucked away in memory for future 
use. One more is interesting for its novelty. When 
the Doctor was detained a day or more in a town, the 



124 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

sign-painters usually became acquainted with the 
young folks, particularly if they were musically in- 
clined. Thus Riley seldom went to the next town with- 
out leaving behind him a merry circle to praise his 
music on the guitar. "One evening at Decatur," said 
his chum, "Riley was foraging about from place to 
place when his hungry eyes fell upon a picture that lin- 
gered in memory years after other events of the even- 
ing had faded. Strange how a little piece of trimming 
like that will cling to a fellow. The old town was mak- 
ing a big fuss over its first railroad, and there was 
something going on every night. There were music 
and dancing. We played games and told fortunes. 
Among the visiting friends we saw at a party, was a 
gay looking girl who wore a Gainsborough hat. 'See 
that slender figure there/ said Riley, 'with a hat tilted 
up like a butterfly's wing?' She looked beautiful with 
a little knot of roses in her hair." When the sign- 
painters learned she was from the Queen City, they 
understood why her dress answered the requirements 
of fashion. "She was not a Duchess of Devonshire," 
said Riley, long years afterward, "but I do remember 
her hat, and I remember too, when we met her again 
the next day that the sunny locks on her temples looked 
like a Golden Fleece." Thus the poet received the sug- 
gestion for his poem, "The Discouraging Model." 

One of the many things Riley declined to do was to 
revisit the Mississinewa. After lumbermen had de- 
stroyed its primeval simplicity, his interest in the 
locality vanished. For him it remained the wonder- 
land of youth. He clung with loving tenacity to the 
simple beauty and pathos of days that were no more. 
Alma Gluck never sang of them more sweetly than he 
remembered them: 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 125 

"Tell me the tales that to me were so dear 
Long, long ago — long, long ago ; 
Sing me the songs I delighted to hear, 
Long, long ago — L-o-n-g A-g-o." 

Should it be a matter of surprise that this disciple 
of The Days Gone By, this poet who saw good in every- 
thing, should write of things as he did? Considering 
the wealth of his experience and his depth of insight 
the marvel is, not that he found so many jewels in ob- 
scurity, so many diamonds in the dust, but that he 
did not find more. Before he could write about things 
he had to live them. In Whitman phrase, he had to 
absorb his country affectionately before the people 
would absorb him. To him his native state was the 
fairest picture in Columbia's gallery. He saw 

"Within the forest gloom 
His Indiana burst in bloom — ■ 
A broad expanse of fair and fertile land, 
Like some rich landscape from the master's hand." 

He saw the polar frost on the "punkin" and the clover ; 
he was driven against the blinding flakes of the snow- 
storm. Like the birds he dined out-of-doors. He 
ranged untraveled fields. Once more, nature — 

"Choosing sweet clay from the breast 
Of the unexhausted West" — 

was making a man by breaking away from worn-out 
plans. She was not shaping a President, not a shep- 
herd of mankind, but a Poet of mankind, a voice to 
sing of a President and his Silent Victors, a heart to 
lure lyrics and ballads from the great symphony that 
lay untouched around him. 

A famous son of Harvard, Joseph H. Choate, is on 
record as saying that "Mark Twain learned more from 



126 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



his post-graduate days as a river pilot on the Missis- 
sippi than he could have got from a course at Harvard" 
— Choate's interesting way of saying that there are 
other universities besides halls of learning. Facts such 
as these we are to remember as Riley bowls through 
the counties and towns of Indiana and western Ohio. 

In the winter season the Doctor confined his "Rem- 
edy" sales to points nearer the Hub. Time was chiefly 
given to work in the office and laboratory. Most of 
the time the sign-painters had to shift for themselves, 
and a thriftless piece of shifting it was for the "Painter 
Poet." While board, lodging and expenses were paid 
by the Doctor, all went merrily enough. Paying 
his own expenses was different. The art of writ- 
ing verse was a gift and he was never happier than 
when exercising it, but the art of making money was 
foreign to him. "This thing of making odds and ends 
meet," said he, "who but the devil can understand 
that." All of which accords with a bit of ancient phi- 
losophy, that we all are working together to one end, 
farmers, merchants and poets, some with knowledge 
and design, and others without knowing what they do. 

As the weeks passed, the old story-and-a-half board- 
ing house, corner Jackson and Bolivar Streets, at which 
Riley was at intervals to go in and out for the next 
five years, became a lively spot. When there was a 
dollar to pay the board bill, he was jovial. There was 
music on the guitar; the world was agog with merri- 
ment. When his purse was empty the bills were un- 
paid — tradition says some were never paid. He man- 
aged however to be always on good terms with the 
landlady. "Your board bill," she would remind him. 
"Yes, yes," he would smile, "I must pay that bill" — 
and thus gaily the delay went on to the end of another 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 127 

week, the landlady as happy in waiting for her money 
as he was uncomfortable in his inability to pay it. 
He was always rhyming; at the dinner table there 
was "catapeller" for saltcellar, "pig- j owl" for sugar 
bowl, and so forth. According to the landlady, Mrs. 
H. E. Whitmore, he gave "a world of attention to dress 
— provided," she said, "some one would furnish the 
clothing. He did not wear glasses, but believe me, he 
wore a mustache, a long, jaunty one which he was 
always curling." The poor little waif of a mustache 
(according to its owner) was just two years old. He 
shuddered when he passed a barber shop lest by some 
strange ungovernable impulse he should be constrained 
to enter it and sacrifice the waif for the relief of his 
friends. 

One snowy day he went into the kitchen with a 
"blacksnake" whip in his hand. (He had found it in the 
street.) "Woh!" he shouted, impersonating a farmer 
who had a load of wood to sell. "Woh, there ! you bare- 
boned broadsides, didn't ye have no fodder fer break- 
fast? Madam," addressing the landlady, "I must sell 
some wood. My board bill is three weeks overdue; 
sell it I must or be sued for debt. What kind did you 
say? Well, mostly beech, sugar and elm — water-elm, 
Madam, will make a fire hot 'nough to roast bear. 
How old air you, little girl?" addressing a daughter. 
"W'y> child, not twelve ? Like apples ? No ? Hickory 
nuts? There's a wagon load on my farm. Woh!" 
It took but a few moments for interest to rise to a fever 
pitch. The oven waxed hot and scorched the pie crust. 
Coffee bubbles ran over the brim and danced on the 
stove lid, while mother and daughter sank into their 
chairs in sheer exhaustion from laughter. Thus genius 
paid a board bill. 



128 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Other echoes came from the boarding house. Riley 
wrote and bound a book in the kitchen, a little book of 
tea leaves, to which he gave the title, "Nursery Rhymes 
for Children." His chum loaned it about until it was 
worn to a frazzle and the rhymes lost. Friends referred 
to it as his first book. An incident, more particularly 
for those interested in the poet's public readings, was 
the coming to the dining-room one week of an "educa- 
tionist," who had been engaged to do institute work for 
the Madison County teachers. He was abnormally 
affected and never lost an opportunity to dilate on his 
favorite topic— the object lesson. "Butter plates and 
teaspoons," said he primly, "are charming illustra- 
tions." 

"A peanut, I suppose," said Riley across the table, 
"would detract from the dignity and profundity of 
the subject." 

"Quite the contrary," was the return, "super-excel- 
lent, a very clever suggestion." 

A few weeks after, Riley entertained a company of 
friends at a private house. Among his quaint selec- 
tions was "The Object Lesson," by no means the 
unrivaled specimen of humor it was afterward, but the 
beginning. 

January, 1873, found Riley in Grant County, attract- 
ing the attention of farmers, with signs on barnsides ; 
one, a huge boot and shoe and a colossal figure 4 with a 
picture of a man by it, advertising the Foreman Com- 
pany. There were at the roadsides, too, funny signs 
in rhyme for merry-makers, such as 

Arnold & Gunder 
For Dry Goods by Thunder. 

That he was not financially successful was recorded 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 129 

in the Doctor's daybook. He had not enough money to 
attend the theater. The Doctor bought the tickets for 
Humpty Dumpty. "The play," said he, "was a fail- 
ure but Riley's comments on it were worth more than 
the price of admission/' The Doctor had advanced 
money and merchandise for the sign-painting venture, 
and the result was somewhat discouraging, as seen in 
the following table: 

J. W. Riley, Dr. 
1873 

Jan. 8. To Cash (at Marion) $ 3.00 

Jan. 18. To Cash (for paint) 1.00 

Jan. 24. To Cash (for paint) 1.00 

Jan. 24. To white lead 1.00 

Jan. 31. To order on Baums 3.00 

Jan. 31. To Cash 1.00 

Feb. 1. To Cash 3.00 

Feb. 10. To Cash .35 

Feb. 14. To Handkerchief .40 

Feb. 15. To Cash 5.00 

Feb. 20. To Shirt (borrowed) 1.50 

$20.25 
J. W. Riley, Cr. 
1873 Jan. and Feb. 
By painting 

By Do 60 Boards $ 6.00 

By Do 10 Boards 2.00 

By Do 2 doz. tin signs 6.00 

By Do sign over door 1.00 

$15.00 
To Dead Loss 5.25 

$20.25 



ISO JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"The above," so the Doctor wrote in his diary years 
after, "is James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet of 
Indiana." The "Painter Poet" was a dead loss in the 
sign-painting venture, but when, a decade later, he 
began to gather sheaves from the field of renown, when 
the Doctor read his poem "Fame," the loss of $5.25 
was a trifle quite beneath notice. 

The "Hoosier Poet" borrowed a shirt for a return 
trip to Greenfield, his first lengthy visit home since 
the afternoon in June 

. "he went rolling away 

To the pea-green groves on the coast of day." 

"James W. Riley" (so ran the local in the Greenfield 
Democrat, February, 1873) "put in his appearance on 
Saturday last. He looks well." He should look well. 
He had traveled from side to side of his native state. 
The excursions had taken the curves and kinks out of 
his routine existence. He had health. Whoever rode 
with Doctor McCrillus returned robust and vigorous. 
The sorrels and the high seat on the "Buckeye" had 
worked the miracle, although the Doctor attributed the 
cure to "European Balsam." 

In his latter years Riley was silent about his youth- 
ful wanderings, yet he never ceased to remember them 
with pleasure. He was so grateful that he once gave 
the Doctor a "lift" in rhyme. Let no critic fancy he 
thought of the jingle as poetry. The season it saw the 
light was his playtime. He was playing with rhymes 
as a boy plays with quoits or marbles : 

"Wherever blooms of health are blown, 
McCrillus Remedies are known ; 
Wherever happy lives are found 
You'll find his medicines around; 



OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY 131 

From coughs and colds and lung disease, 

His patients find a sweet release. 

His Oriental Liniment 

Is known to fame to such extent 

That orders for it emanate 

From every portion of the State ; 

His European Balsam, too, 

Sends blessings down to me and you ; 

And holds its throne from year to year 

In every household far and near. 

His Purifier for the Blood 

Has earned a name as fair and good 

As ever glistened on the page 

Of any annals of the age, 

And he who pants for health and ease 

Should try these Standard Remedies." 



CHAPTER VI 
[WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 

AS ALREADY intimated, the Argonaut did not 
work exclusively for the "Standard Remedy" 
vender. He and his chum sought success in 
other sign-painting fields. When voyaging alone they 
were terribly tormented, like the Argonauts of ancient 
time, with troublesome birds. The ugly harpies, Debt 
and Failure, came to snatch away their dinner and 
hamper their pursuit of the Golden Fleece. 

They formed a partnership, the Riley & McClana- 
han Advertising Company, and made known their pur- 
pose on cards which they distributed in the towns: 
"Advertise with Paint on Barns and Fences — 
That's the Way." Subsequently the firm was ex- 
panded, three or four partners being taken in, and 
the name changed to The Graphic Company, so called 
from the New York Graphic, then popular with de- 
signers. The company went through the country 
painting signs for clothing firms and other enterpris- 
ing establishments. 

One summer morning Riley was working alone, his 
chum having gone a short distance away to paint at 
the roadside. He felicitated himself on his good luck. 
The haze was purpling the horizon wall. The Ken- 
tucky warbler in the "sugar orchard" near by sang as 
sweetly as he ever sang for Audubon. Even the barn- 
yard fowls were tuneful. To perfect the picture, chil- 
dren stood by gazing in wide-eyed bewilderment at the 
132 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 133 

sign as it took shape on the barnside. The sign was a 
large one and the barn on which he was painting it, 
exceptionally well located about a mile from town. He 
was giving his faculties free reign and had the work 
about half done, being overjoyed at the success of it, 
when a man on horseback called to him from the road : 
"Hello, there! you man on the ladder !" Riley looked 
round and waited a moment for a further bit of infor- 
mation. 

"Get down from that ladder." 

"Why?" 

"Who told you to paint there?" 

"The people who live here." 

"Well, the people who live here rent this farm from 
me. Down from that ladder and be quick about it, too." 

He who gave the order was a big man on any oc- 
casion, but that morning, after he had dismounted, 
he stood there like a certain pen portrait of Julius 
Caesar — "eighteen feet high in his sandals." Riley 
remembered that the giant accompanied the order with 
an oath. "It was the oath," said he, "that brought me 
so suddenly down the ladder. I ran like a reindeer 
across the field." 

On reaching his chum, all was flutter and misgiving. 
"What now?" asked the chum. 

"Torn limb from jacket," returned Riley. "Fly! 
cleave the sky! — and the devil take the hindmost." 

They drove hurriedly away, and when they dis- 
covered they were not pursued, Riley became calm and 
related in detail his harrowing experience. 

The sequel is likewise interesting. Ten years later, 
after he had published his first book, after, as he re- 
marked, he had "pulled the joints out of his name" so 
that he was James Whitcomb instead of J. W. Riley, he 



134 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

returned to the old town in Grant County to give a 
public reading. He was the guest at a dinner in his 
honor. As the hours wore away, he noticed the host 
eying him sharply. Later in the evening, after the 
ladies had retired, his host said, "Mr. Riley, it seems 
to me I have seen you before; I can not remember 
where ; perhaps it is my imagination, but I can not get 
it out of my mind that I have met you somewhere." 

Now the poet was an adept in remembering faces. 
"Well," he replied, "out here a mile away — I do not 
remember on which road — there is a barn. Once there 
was a fellow who started to paint a sign on it and a 
man from town — " 

"Are you the fellow — my God ! You are the man I 
ordered down that ladder." The confusion of the 
host is readily imagined and further comment use- 
less except to add that they were fast friends there- 
after. The sign at the time was still unfinished. 

The unfinished sign precipitated other woes. The 
"Advertising Company" had no money. They had to 
replenish their treasury or go to the wall. Paint tubes 
and glass for fancy work required cash. In their ex- 
tremity they concluded to try Howard County, and 
after doing what seemed "a flourishing business" in 
comparison with previous losses, they rattled across 
country in an old "quailtrap" to Peru. As they ap- 
proached the county-seat on the Wabash, Riley 
"sparkled" with memories of an old book he had read. 
He rallied his partner, half-seriously, about the Con- 
quest of Peru. The royal gardens were in Peru, glit- 
tering with flowers of silver — and there were the 
llamas with the Golden Fleece. He and his chum were 
Spaniards going to plunder the Peruvian temples, 
chiefly that one in the heart of the city known as "The 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 135 

Palace of Gold." They would sack the town and take 
it but they would not do it by appealing to arms. 
"Gold," said Riley, using the figurative language of the 
Incas, "is the tears wept by the sun — and we may have 
to weep for it. Joy or sorrow, we must have it." 

Entering the town, the "Spaniards" decided to draw 
first on the heartstrings of the Peruvians hoping there- 
by to loosen their purse-strings. Just for the mischief 
of it, Riley rubbed soap under his eyes, assumed a 
mournful look and was led into the hotel as a blind 
sign-painter. Seating himself in the office, his chum 
went out in search of work. He soon found it and 
drew up a contract for a large sign on the front of a 
livery stable, the work to be done the following day by 
his "blind partner." Returning to the hotel he dis- 
covered a circle of curious folks around Riley, requir- 
ing, on the part of the "Advertising Company," the 
utmost exercise of self-control. Many were sympa- 
thizing with the "blind man" and a few were skeptical. 
The confusion and uncertainty continued at the supper 
table. The "helpless" man spilled gravy on the table- 
cloth while his chum indicated where the dishes were. 
As the meal proceeded, the waiter grew more curious 
and the guests more sympathetic. Riley upset his 
coffee with a trembling hand and at the same instant 
dropped a saltcellar on the floor. "Look at you!" 
remonstrated his chum, sharply ; "now we'll have a bill 
for damages!" 

Being "weary," as they said, "from a long day's 
journey," they retired early. The truth was they had 
to screen the transom with newspaper and lock them- 
selves in their room so that their explosions of laughter 
would not be detected. 

After breakfast Riley was led down the street to the 



136 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

livery barn. The crowd was not long gathering, rumor 
of the blind sign-painter having spread during the 
night from Canal Street to the Cemetery. The space 
for the sign was high above the double-door entrance, 
and ample. Riley was stationed on the sidewalk and told 
not to move till the ladder was hoisted. With a paint 
bucket "hinged" to his side, he stepped falteringly to 
the first round and climbed clumsily to the top. He 
lifted his brush : "A little more to the left," said his 
chum from the street below — "watch your balance — 
higher — a little higher — there, that will do — proceed." 

When ascending and descending the ladder as he had 
to do several times, Riley would "slip" a round and 
once he spilled his paint. "It was great fun," said he, 
"to hear the crowd talking ; the skeptics and believers 
were about equally divided." 

"That fellow ain't blind." 

"Yes, he is ; see his eyes." 

"No, he ain't, I tell you ; he's playin' off !" 

"I tell you he's blind ; didn't you see him fall off the 
ladder and spill his paint?" 

"Mein Gott!" exclaimed a Dutchman when Riley 
slipped on the ladder; "I wouldn't be up dere for a 
coon's age!" 

The work was completed in the afternoon. The 
crowd dispersed, and the "blind partner" was re- 
turned to the hotel where the "Advertising Company" 
retired to its room for more explosions of laughter. 
What the crowd had witnessed was, in its way, as magi- 
cal and unexplainable as was the work of Phidias to 
the artless Greeks. It should be remembered that the 
"Painter Poet" was an actor. The "performance" he 
gave that day was something more than a series of 
contortions or unnatural posturings. He succeeded as 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 137 

well as he did with the "Leonainie Hoax" five years 
later, or even better. 

The next day Riley eluded the public and strolled up 
and down the river, while his chum secured contracts. 
After his "introductory" to the merchants, the chum 
had but to show them the sign on the livery barn to 
clinch an agreement immediately. Seasons of pros- 
perity dated from that day, although most of them 
vanished with the rapidity with which they arrived. 
The Peruvians had been conquered. They gave their 
gold ungrudgingly. They were happy, most of all that 
sight had been restored to the "blind sign-painter" — • 
glad to the core that they had been so "deliriously hum- 
bugged." "Those Spaniards," so a citizen said, "were 
bundles of electricity, the queerest, brightest, cleverest 
fellows that ever climbed over the Peruvian wall." 

Although the blind sign-painter ruse was not re- 
peated in other towns, the Peruvian method of secur- 
ing business became more serviceable every day. It 
was a proposal that business men advertise their shops, 
stores and factories in the manner that had hitherto 
been monopolized by the patent medicine men. "That 
chum of mine," said Riley, "was a great chap. I fairly 
worshiped him because he was so successful and he 
worshiped me because I could do the work after he 
had secured the business," In selecting their victims, 
they looked over the county paper for the most enter- 
prising dry-goods man. Then the solicitor "turned on 
the current and there was music in the air for many 
days." Sometimes, for diversion, he worked under an 
assumed name. "Evidently," he would say to a mer- 
chant, "you are the most wide-awake man in this town. 
We have been painting advertisements on barns and 
fences for a medicine firm. We know that such ad- 



138 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

vertising is the most remunerative in the world. Once 
paid for, it lasts for years. Now there are eight roads 
leading out of this town. We will 'paint' you along 
these roads for three miles out" — for so much money. 

The merchant usually "squealed" at the price. Then 
the solicitor drew the county paper from his pocket. 
"You are paying the editor so much here per inch and 
he advertises your competitor on the same page. Now 
we do not take your rival. We handle one man in one 
line only. By closing a contract with us you monopolize 
the eight roads. If you do not want it we will try your 
competitor." The solicitor seldom failed to "bag the 
game." He also succeeded with the farmers. When 
desiring space for a display on their barns, he had a 
way of admiring their horses and cattle. Sometimes 
he would present the wife with a dress pattern that was 
"very fetching." 

When paid for their work the Company trod on air. 
They spent their money freely, and often became 
the prey of sharpers. As Riley said, they "were jay- 
hawked and soon compelled to embark again on the 
broad deep — penniless, destitute of necessities for 
the voyage." If at such a season the weather became 
inclement, old gaunt Starvation threatened to accom- 
pany them. They waited "with anxious hearts the 
dubious fate of to-morrow." Once, in the Land of the 
Delawares (Delaware County), the days were invari- 
ably dreary. "It was mizzle and drizzle," said Riley; 
"the week was peevish and fretful as a baby cutting 
teeth." And then he broke into rhyme: 

"Rain, rain, go away, 
Come again some other day; 
The doughty 'Spaniards' want to play 
In the meadows on the hay." 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 139 

When the tardy sunshine did finally dawn, they 
"bounced from bed glad as boys who hear the first gun 
the Fourth of July." Borrowing a horse and buggy, 
and engaging to share their gross receipts with a 
big-hearted stranger who furnished the white lead and 
backed them for board and lodging at the hotel, they 
went forth conquering and to conquer. The whole 
region round the county-seat was ticketed with signs 
and couplets. "Merchants, not farmers," they were 
wont to say, "were the salvation of the land. What 
could plowmen do without the implement store ? How 
could their daughters be happy without millinery estab- 
lishments ? How could gooseberries be sweetened with- 
out sugar? How could children be educated without 
the bookstore?" By such clever tactics, losses were 
retrieved. 

Riley was invariably congratulating himself on 
"hairbreadth escapes from Old Starvation." One day 
especially set apart for thanksgiving he, with other 
members of the Graphic Company, was celebrating his 
release with some fishermen on White River near "Mun- 
cie Town." Not far away were landmarks of Red Men. 
It was a romantic spot. "There," wrote Riley, "the 
catfish winks his nimbly fins, 

There all day long the bullfrog cheeps, 

And yawns and gapes and nods and sleeps; 

There the woodland rooster crows, 

And no one knows what the pullet knows." 

The fishermen were near a huge elm, whose trunk 
inclined horizontally across the stream. Toward noon 
Riley stole silently away to a farm-house for refresh- 
ments, leaving his friends to wonder what had become 
of him. An hour later he "mysteriously" stood on the 



140 JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY 

trunk of the tree over the river with a pail of milk in 
one hand and a pie in the other. Old Starvation had 
been vanquished. "I appeal to any white man," 
he began gravely, the fishermen looking up in surprise 
and glee — "I appeal to any white man to say that ever 
he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not 
meat ; that ever he came cold and naked and he clothed 
him not. For my country I rejoice at the beams of 
peace. But do not harbor the thought that mine is a 
joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn 
on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn 
for Logan ? Not one !" 

"Hail to the Chief," shouted his chum from the river 
bank. The fishermen joined in the applause but the 
Chief seemed not to hear them. All afternoon he lis- 
tened to other voices. His heart was a harp in the 
wind. The very trees "lifted up their leaves to shake 
hands with the breeze." Rhymes rippled on as mer- 
rily as the stream over the pebbles. "For a week," 
said his chum, "it was as easy to paint and jingle as 
it was for birds to carol." Signs ran to rhyme : 

"Sing for the Oak Tree, 
The monarch of the woods: 
Sing for the L — M Trees 
The dealer in dry goods." 

Pegasus even bantered him to ride when passing a 
spot so unlyrical as a harness shop: 

"Saddles and harness ! O musical words, 
That ring in our ears like the song of the birds ! 
But give to Pegasus a saddle from there, 
And a poet astride, and we venture to swear 
That the steed will soar up like a vulture and sing 
To the clouds in the sky without flopping a wing." 

"I am so happy," Riley remarked, "I can hear the 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 141 

corn and melons growing." I could climb a sycamore." 
His chum, however, the Graphic Chum, as the reader 
henceforth shall know him, had occasion for disap- 
pointment. For once he had failed as a solicitor. A 
farmer with a keener sense of the beautiful than his 
neighbors refused to have his new barn blemished with 
a sign. It was a conspicuous site — "could be seen," it 
was said, "from Pipe Creek to Kill Buck." The usual 
"bribes" offered the wife, such as a chromo or a set of 
dishes or a calico dress, proved futile. The chum 
painted his regret in a couplet at the roadside : 

"Of all sad words of tongue or pen 
The saddest are these, It might have been," 

Riley promptly following with, 

"More sad are these we daily see: 
It is, but hadn't ought to be," 

both couplets terminating in a parody, which Riley 
wrote with apologies to Whittier, and subsequently 
printed in a county paper, beginning with, 

"Maud Muller worked at making hay, 
And cleared her forty cents a day." 

The failure to disfigure the barn had but a momen- 
ry effect on Riley's buoyant spirit. All was sun- 
ine and love as he passed, as is evidenced by his re- 
flections in the early morning on looking out from a 
window over a new town which he had entered the 
night before. 

"How pleasant it all was," he wrote, "how fresh, 
how clearly defined and beautiful — a picture from Na- 
ture's hand framed in a halo of golden light — the 
broad streets, and the houses with their cleanly washed 
faces crowding together, 'toeing the mark' in proper 



sh: 



142 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

order, eager for the business before them; and the 
voice of the milkman below, a cheery woman's voice 
in response, mingled with the bow-wow of a dog and 
the vague, startled exclamation of a rooster that went 
to scratching up the dirt livelier than ever, carrying on 
an undertone of conversation with a half dozen pullets. 
And then the far-off sound of an early train whose 
whistle pierced the thin air for miles and brought 
recollections of the hum of busy wheels and multitudes 
astir in the city far away. The birds in the woods 
across the common were never so glad before, never in 
such splendid tune. They breakfasted on music. They 
seemed to be too full of joy to have an appetite for 
bugs." 

Although from Peru onward it was up hill and down 
dale, yet on the whole there was an increase of busi- 
ness, particularly after the Argonaut and his asso- 
ciates were advertised as the Graphic Company. An- 
derson was the hub of their wanderings, as it had 
been for the "Standard Remedy" vendings. The 
"Graphics" voyaged with the current. They were 

"Dragon flies that come and go, 
Veer and eddy, float and flow, 
Back and forth and to and fro, 
As the bubbles go" — 

cne month, north to Kendallville ; another, west to 
'Crawf ordsville ; one week, out to Hagerstown ; the next, 
down to Knightstown. 

A Riley had a prosperous season at South Bend the 
fall of 1873. "I have been flourishing in the Stude- 
paker settlement," he remarked on returning from the 
town. "I ranked high with the South Benders." At 
first he worked with a member of the Graphic Com- 
pany. Later he was employed a few weeks by a local 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 143 

house (Stockford & Blowney) and turned out, accord- 
ing to his employers, some of the most original work" in 
the state, "the best west of New York," said they, "and 
second to none in Chicago." One week inside the 
shop he enjoyed "the glare and glitter of two 
hundred and fifty dollars' worth of sign work." One 
of his designs made a decided hit. Its dimensions were 
astounding. For once he had ample room for the exer- 
cise of his inventive faculty. It was a series of pic- 
tures apparently in one — "The Contrast of Forty 
Years" — South Bend in 1833 when a few log cabins 
stood on the River St. Joe, and South Bend, the 
prosperous city of 1873. Over against the pioneer 
surrounded by the crude implements of his time, 
stood the man of fortune surrounded by modern 
conveniences. Left and right respectively, were 
an ox cart and a Studebaker wagon ; a bear and a fat 
cow; a fur trading post surrounded by Indians and a 
commercial emporium surrounded by pleased cus- 
tomers; a well-sweep and a gushing fountain; a judge 
holding court in a shanty by the river and a modern 
stone court house ; a flatboat and a steamboat ; a board- 
ing house and a big hotel; a prairie swamp and a 
Brussels carpet; a stump and a cushioned rocking 
chair; an ax and a gold-headed cane; the log hut and 
the palace ; a family with no news at all and one with 
books and the daily paper. "It was gigantic," said 
Riley. "South Benders were surprised to learn of their 
crude beginning. It took two men a week to paint it." 
At South Bend there also were rounds of social en- 
joyment and participation in musical programs. There 
he heard Bret Harte, who had been an inspiration to 
him since the days he read him in the woods with the 
Schoolmaster. The lecture renewed his interest in the 



144 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



Argonauts. His twenty-fourth birthday had just 
glided by. After it, he was particularly happy when 
the Graphic Chum or any other member of the Com- 
pany referred to him as the Forty-Niner in quest of 
the Golden Fleece. 

As the seasons passed, the "Graphics" grew more 
spectacular. They were a band of roving, roistering 
fellows, all young men filled with a desire to see the 
world. Like Washington Irving when drifting about 
Europe, all they wished was a little annual certainty 
wherewith to buy bread and cheese — "they could trust 
to fortune for the oil and the wine." The chief end 
of their wanderings was amusement. Kiley was a kind 
of prince among them. 

"To hear him snap the trigger 
Of a pun, or crack a joke, 
Would make them laugh and snigger 
Till every button broke." 

His regalia was a thing to remember. "I wore for eve- 
ning dress," said he, "a tall white hat, a pair of speckled 
trousers, a spectacular coat with gilt buttons, and car- 
ried a cane. We made lots of money." A twenty- 
dollar bill was a mammoth sum to him then. When 
doing outdoor work, he did the lettering on windows, 
painting the letters on the outside of the glass instead 
of the inside, thus saving the necessity of tracing them 
backward. He would paint on the sunny side of the 
street in the heat of July till the perspiration streamed 
from every pore. Fear of sunstroke never entered his 
head. There were occasions when a reunion of 
some sort drew people from the country. The result 
was a crowd to watch the "Graphics." On special days, 
for the sake of good advertising, one member of the 
Company would dress in a spotless frock coat and 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 145 

trousers, a Derby hat, and patent leather shoes. Riley 
wore overalls. Sometimes a partner would paint them 
with vivid stripes and bars. Then would succeed an 
Indian war dance which soon blocked the street with 
spectators. However busy the rovers were, whatever 
the number of contracts for work ahead, there was al- 
ways time to manifest the holiday spirit. There was 
a dearth of merriment when Riley was absent. His 
companions hungered for his return. 

"We take pleasure," they wrote while he was so- 
journing a month in Greenfield, "in expressing to you 
our appreciation of your talents and social qualities, 
and desire you to make us a visit in behalf of 'Suffer- 
ing Humanity.' We would respectfully solicit your 
companionship for a week or so if your business will 
permit a holiday of that length of time. ,, Signed — 
Very respectfully, F. H. Mack, W. J. Ethell, James 
Whitmore, James McClanahan (The Original Graphic 
Advertisers) . 

While his advertising companions predicted a future 
for Riley, average observers did not regard him as un- 
usual. He was an animated form of good humor — but 
"genius was a long way off." The spectators who stood 
around him in little towns were not looking for that 
spark of fire in the fellow who drew pictures on the 
hotel register and danced with his companions as 
he went down with the "gang" to the station to see 
the train come in. Genius did not reside in the man 
who carried Doctor Pierce's Memorandum Book in his 
pocket, painted signs for the village baker, and whit- 
tled and told stories in the store on rainy days. There 
were evidences of sign-painting in the neighborhood of 
every town from Lafayette to Ft. Wayne, but the genial 
public did not consider the occupation a stepping stone 



146 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

to poetry. It was not to his credit that Riley was often 
"doggrelling when he should have been daubing." All 
advertisers however marked one thing : that he was no 
"humbug of the brush," and later they learned he was 
no humbug of the pen. To imitate nature, they ob- 
served, artists must not turn their backs on her. They 
can not paint outdoor scenes indoors. Riley knew this. 
"The delicacies of light and shade," he read in Christie 
Johnstone, "can not be trusted to memory. The high- 
est angel in the sky must have his eye upon them and 
look devilish sharp, too, or he shan't paint them." 

There is evidence along the way from Peru to South 
Bend that the Argonaut was not in the advertising 
mood all the time. The "Graphics" held him to his 
agreement with difficulty. The Golden Fleece he sought 
was not the almighty dollar. If they made thirty dol- 
lars a day, as they did in periods of prosperity, it was 
unsafe to tell him before the end of the week. If on 
Thursday, for instance, he "accidently" learned that 
the receipts for three days were ninety dollars he was 
inclined to quit. "That's enough; let's rest." Nor 
would he be driven. When his associates insisted on 
work beyond what he thought was a reasonable demand 
upon him, he would "hide away, loaf and write," and 
appear as mysteriously as he had disappeared the week 
before. It was rumored that he shared the time with 
Cupid. Love (so ran the scrap in his vest pocket) <— 

"Love is master of all arts 
And puts into human hearts 
The strangest things to say and do." 

There was most certainly a drawing upon his heart- 
strings from home. He had been reconciled to his 
father. The latter had been courting, too, and at such 




' Logan's " Speech to the Fishermen 




J. H. McCLANAHAN, 



Graphic Company Business Cab 






* 



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^^W€'i A 7~ *b 



3<i 



/ 



3* 



AJJVEfiKWITfl PAINT. ON BARNS 



AND WNCES, 



IX 






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f* 






Eiley & McClanahah Business Cabd 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 147 

a season found forgiveness the easiest thing in the 
world. H13 letter (omitting irrelevant items) reads 
as follows: 

Greenfield, Indiana, August 27, 1873. 
My Dear Boy : 

You can't imagine how anxiously I have been expect- 
ing a letter from you. I wait — wait — wait with anx- 
ious hope — but no James comes home. He writes to 
others but not to me ; I don't think it exactly right — 
for really I think I am more anxious to hear from you 
and more desirous you should come than any other. 

I have as you doubtless know, another half in the 
person of a Quaker lady, who kindly welcomes you also. 
She often wonders and inquires why you do not come. 
I write you with your photograph and its indorsements 
in my hand. It looks somewhat natural. The hair 
obscures the upper part of the countenance too much ; 
and the expression is somewhat sad. The indorsement 
("He is dead now") I suppose is irony, for report 
says you are a very lively corpse; the other ("He was 
a good boy") is literal I hope. Having passed boy- 
hood years, and glided into manhood, you are, I trust, 
a very good and prosperous man. That other expres- 
sion ("Oh, my God!") on the back of the photograph — 
I do not know how to interpret that. I hope it is not an 
exclamation of despair or pain, but a real reverent rec- 
ognition of God, coming from the heart, and with the 
certainty that He is indeed your God, and will be ever 
near them that call upon Him in faith, believing. 

Now, my Dear Boy, please write me frequently; let 
me know how and where you are and how you are 
doing — and come home as soon as your business will 
allow. Believe me ever and truly 

Your Father, 

R. A. Riley. 

When the "Graphics" sang "Hail to the Chief," there 
was financial significance in the strains as well as mel- 
ody. Riley had originated the big sign idea. At his 



148 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

suggestion a brother of the brush, said by friends to 
have been one of the most eccentric sign-painters of 
his generation, painted "the largest sign in the United 
States," on a covered bridge over White River. "It 
took all the white lead in Anderson to paint it," was 
Riley's word. Newspaper notices of it appeared as 
far away as Minneapolis. It caught the attention of a 
well-known threshing machine company in Ohio, who 
employed its designer to paint their trade-mark on the 
factory — a featherless rooster on a wall sixty-five feet 
high. 

While his brother of the brush was painting the 
trade-mark, Riley received a substantial offer from the 
Howe Sewing Machine Company. He had done the 
gold lettering on a few sewing machines for the com- 
pany, when in Peru. The time seemed auspicious. 
"Poetry to the bow-wows," said his Graphic associates. 
What they desired was to see Riley reap the reward of 
a growing reputation. That reward meant the loosen- 
ing of purse-strings for their benefit. Riley, however, 
was not in the least inclined to mass a fortune. 

The period covering his sign-painting adventures was 
radiant with variety. He touched merriment at all 
points. One of his partners had once been a deacon 
and had a letter recommending him to "the brother- 
hood elsewhere as a member in good standing." Noting 
with amazement the wide contrast between his con- 
duct and the standard set by the church Riley advised 
him to hold on to the letter. "If you ever put it in a 
church," said he, "you'll never get it out." 

Prior to the time his friend painted the mammoth 
sign on the White River bridge, Riley related with 
great glee his blind-painting experience at Peru, how he 
had "turned his eyes wrong side out, spilled his paint 






WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 149 

on the ladder" and so on. "I'll go you one better some 
day," said his friend, and he did — at the bridge. The 
river was at the flood. A crowd of farmers and towns- 
men had gathered on the banks to see the sign expand. 
While painting from the top of a ladder above the mid- 
dle pier, the painter suddenly slipped and fell into the 
turbid waters and was borne like a porpoise down the 
stream. He was an expert swimmer and, by diving 
under floating driftwood, eluded the gaze of the scream- 
ing crowd, passed a river-bend below and came to shore. 
Scattered here and there in the crowd were friends 
(secret participants in the ruse) who proposed to drag 
the river. They had succeeded in awakening anxious 
sympathy when the "drowning man" appeared, and 
arm in arm with his friends smothered his laughter 
and walked away to town, leaving the crowd in utter 
ignorance of his design. For a long while, say thirty 
years after, there were Andersonites still living who 
did not know that the "accident" was planned and 
executed by a poet and his crafty associates. 

Along with amusement came hardships. Riley had 
with manifold pleasures what he called a surplus of 
disappointments. "Although I whined a great deal at 
the time," said he, "these were not to be deplored 
since the best rises to the top in extremity. At 
Warsaw I met a contributor to a local paper 
(Mr. S. B. McManus), who put spurs on my de- 
termination to win recognition. I carried my poem, 
'The Argonaut* in my overalls till it was a confusion 
of paint spots and ragged edges. It had been declined 
by every paper on the 'White Pigeon' line from Jones- 
boro to Michigan. My Warsaw friend liked the poem. 
The papers had accepted him and he said they would 
accept me. A simple remark — it was a slender rope he 



150 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

threw me; doubtless he did not realize the encourage- 
ment he gave, but it was long enough to reach the 
barque of a lone soul drifting by." As Riley went on 
from town to town he was cheered by the success 
of men whose outlook had once been as dismal as his 
own. He particularly recalled Bret Harte, how after 
writing and rewriting, he had taken the prize in a 
thousand-dollar short story contest. Recognition was 
not an impossible thing. His poem, "The Argonaut," 
went to rags with his overalls. As he once remarked, he 
"told but half the tale and lost that ; left the song for 
the winds to sing." But his hopes were not wrecked. 
He began to think of other poems, such as "Faith," 
"Toil," and "Some Day." 

The "White Pigeon" line demanded money for trans- 
portation. The Argonaut had none. At one time he 
offered a pair of sleeve buttons for a railroad ticket. 
As the Graphic Chum expressed it, "he was insolvent, 
had not enough sugar to reach the next town." Some 
bitter recollections clustered round Marion. He lived 
in a joyless room, had to spread newspapers on his bed 
to keep out the cold. Board bills came due and there 
was no money to pay them. In the coldest weather 
he was what Robert Burns calls the most mortifying 
picture in human life, a man seeking work and not find- 
ing it. Outdoor work was impossible and indoor work 
— there was none. He numbered a few post-office boxes, 
but the remuneration was not sufficient to pay lodging. 
"My host," said Riley, recalling the days, "proprietor 
of a little rat-trap of a hotel across the street from 
the brick church, was also out at the elbows. Together 
we moved furniture and all to Huntington, drove in 
a wagon through the rain thirty miles — and through 
the night, too; the moon was not a dazzling disk of 






WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 151 

brilliancy nor were the stars splintered glitterings of 
delight." 

Business revived. Soon he bought a forty-dollar 
overcoat and drifted down stream to meet his chum at 
Wabash. He was always bringing up with the Graphic 
Chum, the man of fickle fancies. He had scaled orchard 
walls with him and made love to melon patches ; 

"Through the darkness and the dawn 
They had journeyed on and on — 
From Celina to La Crosse — 
From possession unto loss — 
Seeking still from day to day 
For the Lands of Where-Away." 

They were the Siamese Twins of the sign-painting bus- 
iness, "who had rolled in the game from the time their 
happy remembrance began." At Wabash they made 
such a favorable impression on the chief merchant of 
the town that he proposed to send them to the country 
to seek work in his family carriage. "We can't use 
that carriage," remonstrated the chum, "the paint will 
splash it." "Then we'll go without paint," said Riley; 
"not every day can sign-painters afford a carriage." 

"Nothing can come from nothing." So Reynolds, the 
painter to the king, had said in the "British Book." "In 
vain," he wrote, "painters or poets endeavor to invent 
without materials on which the mind may work, and 
from which invention must originate." The Argonaut 
acted on the suggestion at every turn in the road. He 
was getting an education. As if sign-painting and 
many other occupations of those years were insufficient, 
he joined a baseball club. He did not play — "served 
as a catcher one afternoon only." He did, however, con- 
ceive the idea of getting together the "crack players" 
of the county. He pitted the "Andersons" against 



152 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

the "Muneies," From this came his "Benson Out-Ben- 
soned, ,, an inferior prose sketch printed later in a 
county paper, but chiefly remembered for the part it 
played in an early lecture failure. 

He was acquiring material — from books as well as 
from men and affairs. To the "Graphics" he was a 
mine of quotation. "Keep to the right — quote poetry 
about that if you dare," said one of them as they were 
traveling a country road. Instantly the Argonaut re- 
peated the old English Quatrain : 

"The Law of the Road is a paradox quite, 

In riding or driving along : 
If you go to the left you are sure to go right ; 
If you go to the right, you go wrong" — 

a muddle that was strikingly illustrative of incidents 
throughout the poet's life. Over and over things he 
started to do went wrong. The simplest efforts often 
ended in complexities. 

"The pranks men play live after them." So Riley 
mused one day while riding on the "Buckeye" with the 
Standard Remedy vender, who had just received a 
sharp note from a preacher in a Dunkard settlement. 
"There is a sign out here," wrote the preacher, "that 
shocks the neighborhood." The Graphic Company, in- 
cluding one whose name was Ethell, had painted a 
sign near the Dunkard settlement and had subscribed 
their names as usual. With a simple twist of the 
brush, Riley obscured the first two letters in Ethell 
and capitalized the third, so the signature read, 
Riley, McClanahan & Hell. This was not done to 
discredit Ethell, who was one of the most blame- 
less men of the Company. As a farmer remarked, 
"It was simply the prank of a prankish poet." The 
sign was changed and the preacher's wrath softened, 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 153 

but not before the "Graphics" and "Standard Remedies" 
had suffered injury. Talebearers had been busy. Pious 
farmers, passing and repassing the sign, had retailed 
the scandal. In due time the good people of the neigh- 
borhood began to talk about the "Hell Company." A 
circuit rider, observing the mischievous conduct of the 
members of the Company around the tavern and de- 
ploring their improvident use of money, remarked that 
the reproachful name contained more truth than poetry. 
Riley sings of the joy and pathos of that vagrant 
time in "Dave Field." Field had shared the happy-go- 
lucky experience up and down the old "White Pigeon" 
railroad : 

"Let me write you a rune or rhyme 

For the sake of the past that we knew, 
.When we were vagrants along the road, 
Yet glad as the skies were blue. 

"Let me chant you a strain 

Of those indolent days of ours, 
With our chairs a-tilt at the wayside inn 
And our backs in the woodland flowers, 

"Let me drone you a dream of the world 

And the glory it held for us — 
With your pencil-and-canvas dreams 
And I with my pencil thus. 

"A sigh for the* dawn long dead and gone, 

And a laugh for the dawn concealed, 
As bravely a while we still toil along 
To the topmost hill, Dave Field." 

So many poems are traceable to the restless excur- 
sions of the Graphic period that it seems ungracious 
to berate it. They interpret Riley's life amiss who 



154 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

deplore those pleasures and hardships. Whatever may- 
be said of his wanderings and the temptations and 
delinquencies occasioned by them, the fact is that he 
regarded them a part of his education. The voice of 
the "wanderlust" had in it the ring of authority. He 
answered it — and the reward was the experience his 
genius required. 

One should look with kindly eye upon his first in- 
clination to be a sign-painter, prompted by his reading 
the Life of George Morland. Of all sketches in the 
"British Books," Morland's life was, to Riley, the most 
fascinating. Morland's career had "the sharp sword 
of necessity at its back." The youthful Riley sat with 
him among sailors, rustics, and fishermen while the 
rooftree rang with laughter and song; he called to the 
drivers of the coaches; he hallooed to the gentle- 
men of the whip; he rode the saddle horses from 
the White Lion Livery and went all in a quiver 
when the artist painted signs. The rapidity of his 
work surpassed comprehension. As time elapsed Riley 
manifested some of Morland's characteristics. Like 
him he became a roving sign-painter, and at times a 
dispenser of conviviality. Like him he seemed to 
possess two minds — one, the animated soul of genius 
by which he rose to fame and made himself victorious 
over many ills of life ; and the other, "a groveling pro- 
pensity," which in his youthful days sought persistently 
to wreck his fortune and condemn him to the gaiety 
and folly of dissipation. 

Re-reading the book, Riley noticed Morland's orig- 
inality — his style and conception were his own — he 
was always natural— he found things to charm the eye 
in the commonest occurrence — he was a painter for 



WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 155 

the people, all the people, the good and the bad, the 
rich and the poor. "Morland's name was on every lip," 
he remarked in an after time ; "painting was as natural 
to him as language ; he opened his heart to the multi- 
tude. The mistake he made was not in going among 
the reptiles, for such his associates of low degree were 
called, the mistake he made was in lowering his conduct 
to the level of their debauchery. He had to see them. 
Did he not paint four thousand pictures? It was 
genius to make the pictures; it was not genius to de- 
light in degradation." 

Moralists have claimed that Riley should not have 
read Morland's Life. There were homes in Greenfield 
where the book was forbidden. The fact, however, 
remains that Riley repeatedly read the book and never 
expressed a syllable of regret for having done so. An- 
other thing equally significant is the fact that although 
he was fascinated with the book, he never wasted his 
young manhood in the wild, imprudent manner of the 
British artist. 

When older, Riley always made it clear that a poet 
had to know the people before he could write verse for 
the people. He had to be bewildered with living before 
he could write "A Ballad from April." After he had 
found "a man for breakfast," as the phrase ran, after 
he had mingled with the section gang and had seen an 
Irish mother weep over the mangled form of her 
son, after he had signed the pledge, talked Temperance 
and worked right and left in the "blue ribbon move- 
ment," then he could write "Tom Johnson's Quit." 

Here in Riley's erratic days, as in the lives of so 
many men eminent in art and literature, is the ques- 
tion of the wheat and the tares, the intermingling 



156 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

of good and evil. Ruskin cites the instance of 
an artist, not only tolerating but delighting in the 
disorder of the lower streets of London, "the web of 
his work wrought with vices too singular to be for- 
given," yet enough virtue and beauty left in him to 
make him "supreme in the poetry of landscape," great 
and good qualities sufficient to make him the "Shakes- 
peare of painting." In all genius, some one sagely 
observes, there is a touch of chaos, a strain of the 
vagabond ; and the admirers of genius in all ages, and 
particularly the friends of poets have avoided many 
erroneous and damaging conclusions by remembering 
this fact. 

On the whole then, friends of literature are not to 
deplore the Graphic days. They are to rejoice that 
Riley 

"Roved the rounds of pleasures through, 
And tasted each as it pleased him to." 

They are to smile when 

"He joined o»ld songs and the clink and din, 
Of the revelers at the banquet hall, 

And tripped his feet where the violin 
Spun its waltz for the carnival." 

They are to be glad, though it is more difficult, x 

"That he toiled away for a weary while, 
Through day's dull glare and night's deep gloom ; 
That many a long and lonesome mile 
He paced in the round of his dismal room ; 
That he fared on hunger — and drunk of pain 
As the drouthy earth might drink of rain. 






WITH THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 157 

"So the Argonaut came safe from doom, 
Back at last to his lonely room, 
Filled with its treasure of work to do 
And radiant with the light and bloom 
Of the summer sun and his glad soul, tool- 
Came to his work with tuneful words 
Sweet and divine as the song of the birds." 



CHAPTER VII 

WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 

THE reader is now to consider another phase of 
a restless life, which in point of years blends 
with the employment of time in sign-painting. 
The Argonaut has joined himself to a band of home 
companions. His excursions are musical and confined 
chiefly to the streets and highways of his home county. 
His joyous occasions suggest a season of May-time 
when he crowded years into a few brief months. The 
nights were long, deep and beautiful, chiefly the "silent 
afternoons of the night," as he so finely wrote, "when 
the heavens poured down upon him their mellow wine 
of glory." He painted signs by day and reveled in 
music by night. "With the fiddle and the flute," 
said one of his home friends, "he and his companions 
drifted out under the stars and laid the pipes for popu- 
larity with the girls." It was the season of sweet sing- 
ing voices, as he wrote in a fragment on "A Tune" — 

"Sweet as the tune that drips 
From minstrel finger-tips 

That twang the strings 
Of sweet guitars in June 
At midnight, when the moon 

In silence sings." 

Life was a dancing medley and heartily Riley re- 
sponded to its charms as did other young men of the 
town. He heard the tinkle and drip of the music that 
158 






WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 159 

they heard, but his heart was also responsive to melo- 
dies they did not hear. While sharing the charms of 
rollicking society, his thought also floated 

"Out on the waves that break 
In crests of song on the shoreless deep 
Where hearts neither wake nor sleep." 

His love of music developed early. There was 
rhythm in the rock of the cradle. Unlike Whittier who 
knew little of music and could scarcely distinguish one 
tune from another, Riley reveled in "the concord of 
sweet sounds." As he grew older he could repeat any 
air after once hearing it. At the age of five he heard a 
violin for the first time at a neighbor's house where 
children had gathered to listen to a country musi- 
cian. The sensation was delicious ; the child caught his 
breath as children do in woodland swings. "He danced 
on the steps," said his mother, "in an ungovernable 
spasm of delight." The prattle of childhood was blent 

"With the watery jingle of pans and spoons, 
And the motherly chirrup of glad content, 
And neighborly gossip and merriment, 
And old-time fiddle tunes," 

as the poet happily sang in A Child-World. Then 
followed his boyish interest in the band wagons that 
glittered with a splendor all their own while he marched 
with boys of high and low degree in circus-day parades. 
He had visions of a time when he should travel with a 
circus and dangle his feet before admiring thousands 
from the back seat of a golden chariot. A little later, 
at the age of twelve he was charmed with the music 
of the Saxhorn Band, the old Greenfield organization 
that marched away to the war in 1861. A serenade 
at the farther edge of town one midnight before their 



160 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

going, awakened in the youthful Riley heart a rap- 
ture undefined. Few lads would have lain 

"So still in bed 
They could hear the locust blossoms dropping on the 
shed," 

In his school-days Riley often took more interest in 
drawing and music than in his books. There was a pic- 
ture in his geography of a herdsman lassoing wild 
horses on the pampas of South America. Riley drew 
in place of the lasso, a guitar, with which the rider 
was beating a horse over the head. "The guitar is a 
light instrument," he once remarked, "but that was 
not giving it light treatment. The horseman wore a 
gaily colored scarf, which reminded me of a Spanish 
cavalier, and that suggested the guitar." 

What dreamy visions ranged over the "arch of crea- 
tion" in those callow days of youth. The old National 
Road, blossoming with its "romance of snowy cara- 
vans" ran like a pageant through the town. Along with 
its ox-carts, its Conestoga wagons and chiming bells, it 
brought the unriddled mysteries of music and love. 
"Bright-eyed, plump, delicious looking girls" were not 
strangers to Greenfield and the long highway that bi- 
sected the town. 

Lovers and poets, according to John Hay, are prone 
to describe the ladies of their love as airy and delicate 
in structure, so angelic that the flowers they tread upon 
are greatly improved in health and spirit by the 
process. The girls who traveled the National Road 
were not of this ethereal type. Nevertheless they were 
beautiful. "Their hair rippled carelessly over their 
shoulders," said Riley, "and many were graceful as 
quails." An emigrant with his wife and daughter came 






WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 161 

slowly westward on the Road one sultry evening and 
camped on the common, the "village green" at the 
edge of town near the Riley homestead. The arrival 
of a charming maiden just ten years old, who could 
play an accordion and sing, was an event and the 
budding Riley knew it. Her stay was brief, the family 
"dropping into night again," westward bound to the 
land beyond the Wabash. But she had remained long 
enough to teach him how to play the instrument — long 
enough to become his "first love." She also is credited 
with being the original of the poem, "The Old Wish," 
suggested by a falling star. When he became a man, 
Riley remembered himself as the callow lad in love 
with the little "accordion wonder." "Brief but beau- 
tiful," he said, 

"For my wild heart had wished for the unending 
Devotion of the little maid of nine — 
And that the girl-heart, with the woman's blending 
Might be forever mine." 

The "village green" was the trysting place a few 
years later for another musical episode. In those days 
he did not leave home to find answers to his dreams. 
They floated to him from distant lands, from the dawn 
and the unknown — and he was happy. "I was not no- 
madic then," he remarked when older, pleasantly allud- 
ing to a merry strain in a McGuffey Reader, 

"Quite contented with my state, 
I did envy not the great ; 
Since true pleasure may be seen 
On a cheerful village green." 

Out of that primitive train of old-fashioned wagons 
on the National Road there drifted one May morning 
a "prairie schooner" with a family from New Eng- 



162 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

land. It was a long wintry way they had traveled. 
The horses having dwindled to the ghost of a team, the 
family halted on the "green" and christened their an- 
chorage "Camp Necessity." It turned out that they re- 
mained for the summer, renting two rooms with a time- 
worn portico in front where morning-glory vines 
climbed up the trellis to smile at hollyhocks on the 
gravel walk. There was a musical daughter in the 
family, who was known to her new friends as "Anna 
Mayflower," to celebrate her native Yankee State and 
the month of her arrival in Greenfield. Her winsome 
manners and her guitar soon drew a circle of young 
folks around her. Ere long Riley came, first to take 
lessons on the guitar — and later, lessons in love. One 
autumn evening as he approached the gravel walk he 
heard music of a doleful character — 

"The long, long weary day 
Has passed in tears away, 
And I am weeping, 
My lone watch keeping." 

"Why that melancholy wail?" he asked on entering 
her door. 

"I am going away." 

"Away? — where — to Sugar Creek?" 

"No— to the Great North Woods." 

"Promise me," said he, "you'll never sing that dirge 
again" — and so far as the lover knew, she kept her 
word. 

The next week the transients were westward bound 
again, and the lad and lassie were "weeping — their lone 
watch keeping." Letters were numerous between 
Greenfield and the North Woods and tradition has it 
that they were love letters. Time passed, a few years 
only, and the music of his soul found expression in 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 163 

words. Caressing his recollections of "Camp Neces- 
ity" and the portico (which for the sake of meter he 
changed to "balcony"), he wrote "The Old Guitar," 
cherishing the while 

"A smile for a lovely face 
That came with the memory 
Of a flower-and-perfume-haunted place 
And a moonlit balcony." 

The sequel was an incident that touched his heart 
tenderly. After the guitar had moldered into decay 
and the old airs had become pulseless, long after the 
poet's heart had been bruised by the Bludgeon of 
Fate, long after "Anna Mayflower's" address had been 
lost and forgotten, there drifted to his desk one day in 
the city a letter from the Michigan woods, just as 
twenty years before the author of it — a maiden of six- 
teen — had drifted into Greenfield. The maiden was a 
mother now. She and her children were rejoicing that 
Fame had come down the National Road and found 
two books — Rhymes of Childhood and Afterwhiles — 
"two books," she wrote,, "that will survive the wrecks 
of type and time — two books that will live 

'As long as the heart has passions*, 
As long as life has woes/ " 

When about twenty years old Riley began to think 
seriously of becoming a musical performer. "I coop- 
ered on the banjo, bass viol, piano and organ," said he, 
recalling the musical days; "I could play on anything 
from a hand-organ up to credulity. I started out with 
a flageolet. You know that remarkable instrument. It 
has a goitre in the neck, and swells up like a cobra de 
capello. You play into one end of it and the performer 
is often as greatly surprised at the output as the 



164 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

hearers." Those were the sleepless days for his neigh- 
bors. They 

"Hopelessly asked why the boy with the horn 
And its horrible havoc had ever been born." 

"He was the plague of the streets," said a Greenfield 
resident; "when he played on the porch, the neighbors 
went in and closed their doors and windows." He 
could sing, too, especially songs in dialect, although, 
according to his own opinion, the chief thing about his 
voice was that it gave variety rather than pleasure. He 
had friends however kind enough to say his singing 
was alone worth the price of admission. He was ama- 
teurish enough to thrum such old favorites as "Twenty 
Years Ago," "Old Kentucky Home," "Rocked in the 
Cradle of the Deep," and "Come Where My Love Lies 
Dreaming." He twanged comic songs on the banjo, 
indeed, wrote two or three himself, the idea literally 
creeping into his mind that he might some day be a 
character-song man and compose his own selections. 
Although possessed of ear, taste and genius, he had 
neither the inclination nor the persistence to learn the 
notes. Like Gainsborough he took his first step, but 
the second was out of his reach and the summit unat- 
tainable. "I don't read music," he said, "but I know 
the dash and swing of the pen that rained it on the 
page." No one could so certainly as he detect it in 
the sound 

"Of dim sweet singing voices, interwound 
With purl of flute and subtle twang of string 
Strained through the lattice where the roses cling." 

The one thing his musical years have to offer is 
variety. Reading between the lines, one discovers that 
the purpose of the Muse was the education of her child. 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 165 

She would have him climb by failures, by experience, 
by slow degrees. In her eyes the waste basket was as 
essential as the "Poet's Corner" in the weekly paper. 
She was content if in a hundred lines she could find one 
crystal, knowing that as her favorite grew to maturity 
the crytals would increase. 

"When the Fates," it has been observed, "will that 
something should come to pass, they send forth a million 
little circumstances to clear and prepare the way. " 
The Fates decreed that Riley should not be a musician, 
but it took some time to bring him round to that con- 
clusion. One of the little circumstances was an acci- 
dent while he and a few companions were driving to a 
village to take part in a musical program. A special 
feature of the evening was "an original poem" by the 
"Distinguished Poet of Center Township." It was a 
raw, snowy day. They drove a mule to a "jumper-" 
sled, an animal that was as perverse and unreliable as 
the wind. "The mule," said Riley, "scared at an ob- 
ject in the tanyard, ran off and recklessly distributed 
our musical instruments along the road. Like Brom 
Bones, we met the devil. My friends found me bruised 
and unconscious, in a heap astride the 'bull-fiddle' in 
a fence corner. Fate was trying to tell me I was not 
to be a musician." 

The original poem, "Joe Biggsby's Proposal," was 
the hit of the evening although it made young Riley 
as nervous as the lover he tried to depict, who in 
reality was none other than himself. "It's about a 
fellow," he read, 

"About a fellow that both of us knows — 
It might be Thomas or John — 
The awkwardest fellow, we'll just suppose, 
That ever the sun shone on ; 



166 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

So awkward he stumbled and fell in love 
With a most pretty girl at that, 
With a voice as sweet as a turtledove 
And eyes as black as my hat" — 

in all, twelve stanzas about his lady-love, which the 
"Distinguished Poet" subsequently consigned to the 
waste basket. 

It was in those caroling days that he made his debut 
as a bass drummer in a brass band. "You should 
have seen him abuse a base drum," remarked a band 
member. He soon hammered himself into the enviable 
position of snare drummer, and in the Greeley cam- 
paign became a regular member of the band — the Green- 
field Cornet Band, succeeded by the Adelphian Band, 
to which he gave the name, and "two removes," said 
he, "from the old Saxhorn Band of the war days," (so 
named from the band instruments which bore the cele- 
brated Saxhorn label). Technically, the Cornet Band 
was superior, due largely to the interest Riley awak- 
ened in good music. "A poor brass band," he re- 
marked, "away from home one day can do more damage 
to a town than twenty enterprising citizens of that 
place can repair in ten years." He was an irregular 
member of the Adelphian Band and "glad of it," he 
said, "for when the notes came due for their extrava- 
gant band wagon, the creditor could not reach me by 
legal proceedings. Pay a band note? I did not have 
enough money to liquidate a notary fee." It was with 
difficulty that the Adelphians saved their wagon from 
the sheriff's hammer. 

A solace for the Adelphian boys in those insolvent 
days was a huge marble cake with three pieces espe- 
cially wrapped in fancy paper for the "Poet." The 
cake was the gift of sweethearts, who thus expressed 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 167 

to their lovers their gratitude for a "joy ride" in the 
new band wagon. Contrary to the ladies' expectation, 
the Muse was languid. "Oh, Muse !" the "Poet" wrote, 

"Inspire our Taber No. 2' 
To dull itself, at least, with something new; 
Command it hence at Fancy's Fate to chapper 
On Three Graces in a paper wrapper. 

"The pleasures manifold of this sweet feast 
Would fill a dozen pages at the least, 
But, Ladies, we'll inflict you with but one — 
With trifling change we quote from Tennyson : 
It 'gentler on digestive organ lies 
Than tired eyelids on tired eyes.' 
For this entendra you will please excuse 
A blunt lead pencil and a drowsy Muse." 

The country "joy ride" afforded an enlivening ex- 
perience. While the band boys with their sweethearts 
were on their way to a Blue River town a storm befell. 
As Riley remarked, "Old Jupiter Pluvius took part in 
the performance. The rain beginning to vex the fields, 
the contents of the band wagon were crowded into a 
barn, and held there a whole rainy day." As usual, 
when merriment was required, the Adelphians drew on 
Riley's fertility of resources. Recalling that the scene 
in Hogarth's Strolling Actresses was laid in a barn, 
fitted up like a theater, he resolved to assemble a simi- 
lar company of performers, not for the amusement of 
mankind, but for the pleasure of a community on Old 
Brandywine. He improvised a kind of rural opera and, 
barring the half-dressed figures on the old English 
playbill, it bore some resemblance to Hogarth's The 
Devil to Pay in Heaven. Instead of ancient deities 
for dramatis personam, he had the Adelphians and their 



168 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

sweethearts and he saw to it especially that no damsel 
should represent the "Tragic Muse." 

After feasting on a picnic dinner, the players cleared 
the barn floor and opened their "Country Drama" with 
a polka as joyous and wild as the music that struck 
wonder and applause to the hearts of "The Jolly Beg- 
gars," the whole company dancing to the cornet, violin, 
guitar and violincello. 

"Wi quaffing and laughing, 
They ranted and they sang; 
Wi jumping and thumping, 
The vera girdle rang." 

Then it was a fandango, a hornpipe, a quadrille, a 
charade, or masquerade — anything to end the day in a 
carnival of enjoyment. The Adelphians were not want- 
ing in powers of invention, particularly if accompanied 
by their sweethearts. The program was both musical 
and theatrical. That night, after the storm, when the 
moon rose out of the woods to flood the barn floor with 
light and tangle her beams with dancing feet the Muse 
found another thread of gold for the Golden Fleece. 
She was not drowsy in "The Last Waltz" : — . 

"What happiness we had, 
When that last waltz went mad 
And wailed so wildly sad — 

So weirdly sweet — 
It seemed some silver tune 
Unraveled from the moon 
And trailed, that night of June, 

Beneath our feet! 

"A marriage of glad hands — 
A gleam of silken bands — 
A storm of loosened strands — 
A whirling sea. — 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 169 

The broken breath — the rush 
Of swift sweet words — the flush 
Of closed lids — and the hush 
Of ecstasy ! 

"O'Love'I long delight! 

music of that night ! 
The seasons in their flight 

Have not been false; 
The arms that held you then, 
Enfold you now as when 

1 kissed you, first of men, 
In that last waltz." 

War Barnett, a member of the old Saxhorn Band, 
recalled that Riley's efforts to play on musical instru- 
ments lacked the patience of persistence. The Adel- 
phians, however, marking Riley's enthusiasm a few 
years later, noted a beautiful exception — his love of 
the guitar and the violin, chiefly the violin. Leaning 
over his instrument, the hope in his heart grew 
sweeter than songs without words. Just as Longfellow 
embodied the spirit of poetry in the majesty of the sea, 
the everlasting hills, and the ever-shifting beauty of 
the seasons, so Riley embodied the spirit of music in 
objects of simple interest and love, in the old-time 
fiddler, in the robin teetering on the bough, in a merry 
boy at play, in the maiden tripping through the meadow 
grass. "Tilt the Cup," he besought the hunter boy, 

"Tilt the cup 
Of your silver bugle up, 
And like wine pour out for me 
All your limpid melody ! 
Pouch your happy lips and blare 
Music's kisses everywhere, 
Wave o'er forest, field and town 
Tufts of tune like thistledown, 
And in mists of song divine 
Fill this violin of mine." 



170 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

His desire to play on the violin was quickened into 
a passion at the age of nineteen. He read stories and 
legends of Ole Bull, the Master Musician, "who lived 
in the ideal world, whose language was not speech, but 
song." To Riley the great Norwegian was a modern 
Orpheus. Birds came out of the thickets, and 
dancing streams stayed their onward feet. A fairy 
throng of elves and spirits whirled in wild delight 
around him (so he read in Longfellow) and mingled 
with these were 

"Screams of sea-birds in their flight, 
And the tumult of the wind at night." 

Ole Bull's violin, too, was the magical harp of gold. 
The pine and maple from which it was made had 
rocked and wrestled with the wind in the Tyrolean 
forest, on the Italian side of the Alps, where sunshine 
and sea infused melody into the trees. There was 
something also in the folk-type of the Norwegian land 
similar to that of Hoosierland. The people were ani- 
mated, enthusiastic and practical — "a curious com- 
bination," it was said, "of the prosaic and the ideal." 
Such a combination made Norway rich in men of 
genius as like conditions have since produced like re- 
sults in Indiana. 

To hear Ole Bull and to see his violin became a 
fixed purpose. "I would walk fifty miles," said Riley, 
"to see the diamonds in his bow." 

Although Riley was forty years the junior of Ole 
Bull there was a striking similarity in their lives. The 
ruling passion of each was an abiding love of home 
country. The poetry in its scenery and the native 
merit of the people took hold of each from childhood. 
That of -Norway was reflected in Ole BulPs style of play- 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 171 

ing and gave to his selections the charm of originality 
that never failed to captivate his audience just as the 
rustic beauty and simplicity of Indiana were afterward 
reflected in the ballads and public readings of the poet. 
"Eagerly I devoured all myths, popular melodies, folk- 
tales and ballads — these made my music," said Ole 
Bull. He is a short-sighted student indeed who can 
not find a similar influence in the development of the 
Hoosier Poet. 

Stories of Ole Bull were in the air and the effect 
was to stimulate Riley's enthusiasm to hear him, to 
the point of determination. There was then no life of 
the Norwegian. "We'll write one," said Riley. He 
prepared a sketch which he carried about in his "reti- 
cule" and later laid away for safe keeping in a trunk. 
"I did not need the sketch," said he, "to quicken a pas- 
sion for music. I already had that. What I needed was 
assurance and hope. If Ole Bull had wrought great 
things from humble beginnings, perhaps I could. He 
was self-taught. He played his own pieces. Coming 
under the influence of Paganini in Paris, he definitely 
adopted the career of a violinist. I was hopeful enough 
— call it a foolish dream, if you will — to believe a like 
fortune would attend me." 

To Riley there was something alluring in the Ole 
Bull testimonials. Many were printed in western 
papers, "a rattling good one," said he, "by George 
William Curtis," who had lifted the master violinist 
to a pedestal beside that of Jenny Lind. "Critics," 
said Curtis, "might dash their heads against Ole Bull 
at leisure, the public heart would follow him with ap- 
plause because he played upon its strings as upon those 
of the violin. His nature sympathized with the mass 
of men. He was so full of life and overflowing with 



172 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY: 

vigor that he would impart that sympathy at all 
hazards." 

There was "a darling tribute" by Lydia Maria Child. 
"Ole Bull played four strings at once," she wrote. "The 
notes were tripping and fairy-like as the song of Ariel. 
He made his violin sing with a flute-like voice, and 
accompany itself with a guitar, gentle and musical as 
the drops of the rain. How he did it I know as little 
as I know how the sun shines, or the spring brings 
out its blossoms." 

Such language to the heart of youth was electrical. 
The purpose to hear the master violinist became a con- 
suming fire. Twice Ole Bull came to large cities of the 
West, but they were too far away. Riley had not yet 
solved the problems of dress and long distance trans- 
portation. "His old friend, Poverty," said an Adel- 
phian, "was sticking closer to him than a brother. He 
still enjoyed the luxury of borrowed clothing; and the 
misfits, or tightfits, worn sometimes with a Greeley 
plug, reminded us of a dandy. Silver and gold he had 
none. All he had to offer was poetry." Happily he did 
not have to ride a long distance to hear the Master. 

The winter and spring of 1872 was for Indianapolis 
a season of platform kings. Wendell Phillips came in 
January to talk on "Courts and Jails." He was fol- 
lowed by J. G. Holland on "The Social Undertow," and 
he by Josh Billings on "What I Know about Hotels." 
Then came Robert Collyer with "The Personality and 
Blunders of Great Genius," and Mark Twain with 
"Passages from Roughing It." All these Riley passed 
by. 

One day when all things were feeling the tonic of 
the spring, the following announcement appeared un- 
der "Amusements" in the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel: 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 173 

Academy of Music 

the world-renowned violinist 

OLE BULL 

( Assisted by Eminent Artists) 

IN GRAND CONCERT 

Tuesday Evening, April 16 (1872) 

To Riley the announcement was like the south wind 
blowing over spring flowers. Outwardly he was happy, 
but "inwardly," said he, "my life had been a bleak De- 
cember. Something was tugging away at the core of 
existence and I did not know what it was. I only knew 
that the mystery of it meant misery to me." His soul 
was burning within him. He was peering into the 
darkness, like the author of the "Raven," wondering, 
fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever 
dared to dream before. He was yearning for some 
knowledge of his mission. 

At the Academy of Music, however, the "misery of 
existence" faded. "Leaning forward to catch the first 
strains from the harp of gold," said Riley, "I was glad 
as a lover among the sheaves of harvest meadows. 
In imagination I saw Ole Bull behind the curtain draw 
his violin from its ebon case, tune and hold it close to 
his breast, poising the bow in his outstretched hand 
like a magician's wand. I could almost squeeze fra- 
grance from the tunes before the curtain was rolled 
up." It did not matter to Riley that he had an in- 
ferior seat. What did he care? Ole Bull had sold his 
last shirt to hear Paganini, and had been content 
with a seat in the topmost gallery in Paris to hear 
Malibran. 

At last the golden moment came. There on a Hoosier 
stage the rapt Musician stood, the silver of sixty win- 



174 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

ters on his brow, the dew of youth in his heart, — stood 
there just as Longfellow had said: 

"Blue-eyed, his aspect blithe, 
His figure tall and straight and lithe, 
And every feature of his face 
Revealing his Norwegian grace ; 
A radiance streaming from within, 
Around his eyes and forehead beamed, — 
The Angel with the violin, 
Painted by Raphael, he seemed." 

All that Longfellow had said of the Norwegian was 
only a faint reflex of what he was. His soul was in 
his music. The violin talked for him. He played it 
because he loved it. Riley's own interpretation of the 
hour, a memory written years after, was brief, but 
charged with feeling : 

"Why it was music the way he stood, 
So grand was the poise of the head and so 
Full was the figure of majesty ! — 
One heard with the eyes, as a deaf man would, 
And with all sense brimmed to the overflow 
With tears of anguish and ecstasy." 

He played "A Fantasie on Lily Dale," "The Car- 
nival of Venice," and "My Old Kentucky Home" 
with variations. Chief interest centered in "The 
Mother's Prayer" which was played and heard with the 
deepest emotion. What seemed so miraculous was the 
discovery that the extraordinary man played the most 
difficult selections "with the ease of a common fiddler 
playing a jig or hornpipe." And such sustained per- 
fection — he played three or four parts without a hint 
of discordant note. Occasionally his music was ca- 
pricious ; as some said, "he resorted to tricks with his 
instrument," but never for an instant was it wanting 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 175 

in the poetry of his interpretations. The performance 
was a combination of strength and love and "that," 
said Riley, "makes a miracle any time in any land." 
He played as if he had just found a violin, played as 
Emerson said he played in Boston — "the sleep of Egypt 
on his lips." 

The criticism Riley particularly emphasized was 
that Ole Bull's music "went to the heart of the musi- 
cally ignorant and carried the educated by storm" — 
just as his own public readings were destined to do in 
the famous afterwhiles. He felt like calling the grand 
old artist "the only violinist." The encores (the "Last 
Rose of Summer," "The Nightingale," and "Home, 
Sweet Home") were inexpressibly lovely. " 'The Ar- 
kansas Traveler/ " said the reporter, "was played with 
such rollicking abandon that the audience broke all re- 
straint and drowned the sound of the instrument with 
applause. A happier audience never left the Academy 
of Music." Riley went out "feeling that something 
beautiful had passed that way — something more beau- 
tiful than anything else, like the dream of dawn or the 
silence of sundown." 

He returned to Greenfield — as he said — "a gentleman 
of good family and great expectations." He was flushed 
and exultant. "Music was the climax of the soul." The 
great violinist was the sole object of his thoughts. "Did 
you meet him?" asked his friends. "Why should I?" 
was the prompt rejoinder. "You don't have to shake 
hands with a man to know him. Don't you know how 
friends are made? Fellowship exists whether we meet 
or not. I have known Ole Bull all my life." Leaving 
some of the wiseacres to doubt his sanity, he hastened 
to his room. He drew the Ole Bull "Sketch" from his 
"reticule" and read it again. His resolution to be a vio- 



176 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

linist had received such impetus that nothing 1 — to his 
way of thinking — could break it. "Hope told a flat- 
tering tale." She pointed out the resemblance in his 
life to the early struggles of Ole Bull for recognition. 
Similarity ran back to childhood. There was no prom- 
ise for Ole Bull in the schoolroom as there had 
been none for "Bud" Riley. "Take to your fiddle 
in earnest, my boy," the old Norway rector had 
said; "don't waste your time in school." Ole Bull's 
genius refused positively to go into a straight jacket. 
How had he learned to play? God had taught him — 
it was said — by a process as simple as that of the mock- 
ing bird. When a child he had seen in a meadow a 
delicate bluebell swinging in the wind ; in his fancy he 
heard it ring while the soft voices of the waving grass 
accompanied it. "I know what he heard," said Riley, 
and so promptly did he accent the value of his opinion 
by relating incidents in his own experience, that lovers 
of the beautiful never for an instant doubted his word. 
After the immediate enthusiasm over the concert had 
subsided, Riley bethought himself of the road to suc- 
cess. He went back of Ole Bull to Paganini for a 
motto which he narrowed down to "Work, solitude and 
prayer." In the "British Books," excellence in paint- 
ing and sculpture was chiefly the result of incessant 
application and he was convinced that music demanded 
like concentration. With Ole Bull and Paganini it 
meant practice twelve hours a day. Neverthe- 
less, he was not intimidated. He would sound the possi- 
bilities of music, and to this end he played on every 
violin he could borrow. When the owner declined 
to let him take it away from the house, he remained 
and played in the kitchen. To use his own words 



WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 177 

he "even accepted invitations to canter over the 
strings while dancing feet jarred the chinaware 
and windowpanes." Friends remember that he 
leaned lovingly over the violin and that the strains were 
lyrically sweet. "There was a room in the old Dunbar 
House in Greenfield," said an Adelphian, "where he 
played hour by hour to drown discordant sounds such 
as the grist-mill, egg-beaters, and the rattle of the 
street." To such he opposed "Home, Sweet Home," 
"The Cottage by the Sea," and "The Suwannee River" 
with variations of his own improvising. Ole Bull had 
composed his own music and he would do the same. 

Thus he practised and thus he forecast his future 
in the musical world with prospect of reward when he 
was sorrowfully confronted with the result of an acci- 
dent, which, trivial as it seems, can not be overlooked 
since it actually did turn and alter his career, as trifles 
frequently do in this world, where a gnat, according 
to Thackeray, often plays a greater part than an ele- 
phant, where a mole-hill can upset an empire. "Great 
God!" exclaimed the old Greenfield Commercial, "on 
what a slender thread hang everlasting things !" The 
accident was a caprice of the wind. The Commercial 
further observed that winds are born to be capricious. 
They ramble at will among trees and poets 

"And love and cherish and bless to-day 
What to-morrow they ruthlessly throw away." 

What the wind really did — to say it curtly — was to 
slam a door on Riley's thumb. "The wind was mad," 
said he, "stark, staring mad ; running over and around 
town, howling and whooping like a maniac." 

At first the injury was not considered serious, al- 
though he had to dress it daily and carry his hand in 



178 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

a sling. But when afterward he devoted time daily to 
the violin, the wounded finger complained, the pain 
increasing as he increased the hours of practice. One 
night, all alone, it was sadly borne in upon him that he 
was not to be a violinist. "You say a short thumb is 
a little thing," he once remarked. "I say it is a big 
thing — it was then." When he fully realized he could 
never grip the violin as he had seen the Master Musi- 
cian do, the sense of disappointment was akin to that 
which would come over a man were some familiar 
mountain-top to sink suddenly and forever from sight. 
Riley was more sensitive than many of his con- 
temporaries. What others suffered lightly he suffered 
keenly. It was destiny's way of making him a poet — 
to him then a heavy-laden, shadowy way. A French- 
man remarked with a smile, that the whole face of the 
world would probably have been changed had Cleo- 
patra's nose been shorter. "That remark should not 
provoke a smile," said Riley. "The sage should have 
said it with gravity; it was the truth. Walter Scott, 
when a child, sprained his foot. Ivanhoe and the other 
Waverley novels were dependent on that sprain. Had 
Scott not been lame he would have gone into the army. 
The gates of great events swing on small hinges." 

Only the few who despise the day of small things 
will smile at Riley's grief. The many will share it, 
for reasons made clear to them by turning-points in 
their own lives. They will perceive what has been 
often observed, that defects are made useful to men. 
Ignorant of ourselves, Shakespeare tells us, we often 
beg our own harms, which the wise powers deny us 
for our good. Subsequently when Riley began doing 
his life work with the pen, he saw that the angel of 
adversity had denied him the realization of one dream 




James Whitcomb Riley 
Age twenty-two 







Ole Bull, the Master Musician 
From photograph Riley carried as a mascot 






WHILE THE MUSICIAN PLAYED 179 

that she might bless him with the fulfillment of a 
greater. Obedient to the angePs prompting, he wrote 
his popular poem, "Kissing the Rod." Ever after, his 
letters to sorrowing friends harmonized with the mes- 
sage of that poem. "No mortal condition," he once 
wrote, "is better than the one God seems to weigh you 
down with. In my own case I am coming every day to 
see clearer the gracious uses of adversity. — Simply it 
is not adversity. — It is the very kindest — tenderest — 
most loving and most helpful touch of the hand Divine." 

Though yielding to the decree of fate, Riley's in- 
terest in music never abated. The man who held that 
painting is the poetry of color, sculpture the poetry of 
form, and music the poetry of sound, could not at any 
time of his career be far from the heart of the musical 
world. His debt to great composers was always ac- 
knowledged. For years after the concert he idolized 
Ole Bull, and carried his photograph in his "reticule" 
on reading tours as an omen of good fortune. No one 
understood better than he the love of Ole Bull for his 
instrument. When he escaped from a burning 
boat on the Ohio, Riley was "happy as a hummingbird." 
The picture of the Master hugging his violin as he ap- 
proached the Kentucky bank of the river was never 
effaced from Riley's memory. "I would have thrown 
up my hands," said he, relating the story to a railroad 
conductor, "but Ole Bull was a Norseman; he had 
courage. If ever you have a wreck and find in the 
debris the unidentified body of a man with a fiddle in 
his arms, bury it without further inquiry as the re- 
mains of Ole Bull." 

In those days of "strange pale glamour," although 
the Argonaut did not see it, he was, nevertheless, as- 
cending more rapidly than he dreamed to the niche he 



180 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



was destined to fill. Cromwell was not a poet, but he 
gave to the inscrutable ways of destiny a poetic inter- 
pretation when he remarked that one "never mounts 
so high as when he knows* not whither he is mount- 
ing." 



: 






CHAPTER VIII 
ATTORNEY AT LAW 

THAT the Hoosier Poet ever seriously thought of 
groping among the technicalities of the law for 
the Golden Fleece seems to lovers of verse unbe- 
lievable. They are aware (according to the myth) 
that there was a wild sea to sail over, dragons to fight 
and gods to assauge before the hero could bring the 
Fleece home ; but for an Argonaut of the poetic order 
to pommel felons in court and be pommeled by oppos- 
ing lawyers seems a perversion of gifts. Riley did not 
practise law, but he had friends who were bent on his 
doing so. 

As has been seen, his first ambition was to be a baker. 
At the age of five his joy was complete when he could 
fashion a custard pie. His father, however, desired 
him to be a lawyer and that desire preceded the ambi- 
tion to be a baker. It was another one of those erro- 
neous paternal dreams of a profession for a gifted son. 
To enumerate them would make a book: — Schiller 
forced to study law till his dislike for it approached 
absolute disgust. Longfellow, writing his father that 
the legal coat would not fit him and the father insisting 
that he wear it. "Nature," said the son, "did not de- 
sign me for the bar, or the pulpit, or the dissecting 
room." The father of Ole Bull striving to make a law- 
yer of a violinist, and Lowell's father exacting a prom- 
ise from his son that he would "quit writing poetry 
and go to work." For twenty years Reuben Riley 
181 



182 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

dreamed of the law for his son Whitcomb. He dressed 
the boy in a blue coat and trousers, and carried him to 
the old log court house, lifted him to a seat in a win- 
dow, and was overjoyed when his brother attorneys 
poked the little fellow in the ribs and called him "Judge 
Riley." The son tells of the' incident in his own inimi- 
table way: "A peculiar man was my father. About 
the third thing I remember was that he made my first 
suit of clothes. I was three years old at the time — too 
young, in fact, to be taken out of pinafores, but my 
father insisted that I should have a pair of pants. My 
mother protested, but father would have his way. He 
stepped off quietly to a store and bought the cloth with- 
out saying a word. Then he cut out the suit and made 
it with his own hands. The coat was a marvel of art. 
Imagine it, a little three-year-old with long pants, a vest 
with a red back and buckle, and cut like a man's. Then 
he took me day after day to the courtroom where at 
that impressionable age I saw many people with many 
eccentricities. Imagine the queer figure I must have 
cut among them with my hair white as milk and my face 
freckled as a guinea egg." 

"It was my father's ambition," Riley remarked on 
another occasion, "to make me a lawyer, and I struggled 
to satisfy his wishes; but bless you, that profession 
was not my bent. I could not learn the stuff fast enough 
to forget it." The jumble in his mind was accented by 
the confusion of tongues in the courtroom. Attorneys 
might see wisdom in the proceedings but to him all was 
"dense with stupidity." The charge of a rural justice 
to the jurymen (a story Riley sometimes repeated) 
illustrates his confusion: "Gentlemen, if you believe 
what the counsel for the plaintiff says, you will find for 
the plaintiff. If you believe what the counsel for the 



ATTORNEY AT LAW 183 

defendant says, you will find for the defendant. But if, 
like me, you believe neither the counsel for the plaintiff 
nor the counsel for the defendant, the Lord only knows 
what you will find." 

Riley in a courtroom was an illustration of Schiller's 
story of Pegasus at the cart and the plow. Nature does 
not design poets for such employment. But give them 
range for the exercise of their genius, as Schiller points 
out, and they will rise kingly, unfold the splendor of 
their wings and soar toward heaven. What had Riley to 
do with the wilderness of code and precedent? 

"In the nice sharp quillets of the law, 
Good faith ! he was no wiser than a daw." 

Washington Irving was an adept in the profession com- 
pared with Riley. A friend, referring to Irving' s ad- 
mission to the bar, remarked that "he knows a little 
law." "Make it stronger," said the attorney — "dam 
little." What a farce, Riley, in substance, once observed 
(drawling the quotation from a favorite novel), 
a bench-leg poet among members of the bar, 
tripping one another up on slippery precedents, 
groping knee-deep in technicalities, running their 
goat-hair and horse-hair warded heads against walls 
of words, and making a pretense of equity with 
serious faces ; think of me in a fog of bills, cross-bills, 
answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, ref- 
erences and reports — think of me floundering in a 
courtroom with that mountain of costly nonsense piled 
before me! 

To Riley the law seemed a device to pull wires, an 
effort to dodge, evade and prevaricate — "the suppres- 
sion of truth, a juggling with justice." It was the devil 
take the attorney. As a brother poet expressed it: 



184 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"Here lies John Shaw 
Attorney at law, 

And when he died 

The devil cried, 
Give us your paw 
John Shaw 
Attorney at law." 

"The epitaph contained more truth than humor" — 
such was Riley's caustic opinion when in an intolerant 
mood. "The law will never help the race," he was wont 
to repeat, "till it hangs men, not for what they do, but 
for what they are." 

"The civil law'' screamed Martin Luther, "good 
God! what a wilderness it is become!" "Mark the 
words," added Riley, when he read them; "there is a 
call for house cleaning when a preacher exclaims 
against it. You can't get truth by cross-examination. 
An attorney can curl you up on the witness stand like 
a burnt boot." 

Thus he would go on till some of his friends in the 
profession would hit back. "Stop your flings at the 
law," said a notary; "in one week I have seen enough 
in the life of an author to shame the devil in his palm- 
iest days !" 

"So we plow along," returned Riley, "so we wag 
through the world, half the time on foot and the other 
half walking." 

"He never studied law," said one of Riley's early 
friends. In a sense, that is true. He read but he never 
studied. He lost interest when he discovered that 
"Blackstone would not rhyme with Minnesinger." He 
was never admitted to the bar; he, of course, never 
had a client. "My chief asset," he once moaned, "con- 
sisted of hopes for the future — and hopeless they 



ATTORNEY AT LAW 185 

were. I saw myself dwarfed and poor as Daniel 
Quilp, my office like his, a little dingy box on a 
side street in Tailholt, with nothing in it but an old 
rickety desk and two wood blocks for chairs, a hat-peg, 
an ancient almanac, an inkstand with no ink, and the 
stump of one pen, and an old clock with the minute 
hand twisted off for a toothpick." 

"He never studied law!" The following anecdote 
seems to confirm the observation : When making a new 
book, Riley sometimes sent out a ferret for fugitive 
poems. While serving him in this capacity, a stenog- 
rapher, searching through the old files of a newspaper 
found the poem, "To the Judge," which the poet had 
entirely forgotten — could not recall that he ever wrote 
it. Two lines of one stanza (as printed) ran as fol- 
lows: 

"Can't you arrange to come down? 
Pigrouhole Blackstone and Kent!" 

"Pigrouhole! Pigrouhole!" repeated Riley. "Who is 
Pigrouhole? I was a May-day failure at the law, I 
know, but I ought to know who Pigrouhole is." He 
looked in an English cyclopedia, thinking Pigrouhole 
was a contemporary of Blackstone. Then he searched 
a French dictionary, thinking the barrister with the 
vexatious name might be a Frenchman. At night he 
called in a lawyer friend. "You are an attorney," said 
he; "tell me who Pigrouhole is." "Let me see the 
lines," said his friend, puzzled over the strange name. 
He read them a second time — 

"Can't you arrange to come down ? 
Pigrouhole Blackstone and Kent! — 
Can't you forget you're a Judge 
And put by your dolorous frown 
And tan your wan face in the smile of a friend — 
Can't you arrange to come down?" 



186 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"You mean pigeonhole' 9 said his friend ; "your word is 
a verb. Read your poem — you are asking the Judge, 
the friend of your youth, to quit the dust of the town 
for the country." 

"Let us pray," added Riley. 

The only time Riley ever had "a case in court," he 
was both defendant and counsel for defendant. It was 
a farce but deserves a place in his annals for its saving 
grace of humor. Sometime prior to his study of Black- 
stone, while returning in a band wagon from a concert, 
a dispute arose with one of the band boys which ended, 
said one of them, "in a fair display of courage 
and violence." His antagonist turned upon him with 
such scurrilous terms as "thief" and "liar." "I could 
lick you for saying that," said Riley, "if I could spare 
the time." It turned out that he had to spare the time. 
In the scuffle which followed, he pitched his foe out of 
the wagon. The poet recalls the incident in his lines 
on "The Strange Young Man." For obvious reasons 
he calls the wagon a "jumper"-sled, and disguises him- 
self in the chap with the dyed mustache, 

"Who got whipped twice for the things he said 
To the fellows that told him his hair was red." 

The offense being a sweet morsel for the town marshal, 
Riley was accused of "assault and battery" and brought 
before the Mayor for trial. The defendant asked for 
jury trial, and six "law-abiding freeholders" were 
selected to decide his fate. He chose for counsel an 
eccentric young fellow of the county, who had been 
established in a pretentious looking office with a new 
library, by his father, a wealthy farmer. The father 
had placed money to his son's credit in the bank and 
told him "to cut loose." The "Squire" (for so his 
cronies called him) like the defendant was short on 



ATTORNEY AT LAW 187 

clients as well as knowledge of the law. Riley's was 
his first case — and his last. 

At the trial the spectators consisted chiefly of the 
"Squire's" friends (so called), loafers around his 
office, who for some time had dreamed of getting their 
money's worth from his hour of confusion. When 
the lank and lean "Squire" appeared with his arms full 
of law books, they gave him their full measure of ap- 
plause, which was promptly met with the Mayor's 
threat to "clear the galleries" if repeated. After wit- 
nesses had been examined and counsel for plaintiff had 
finished, the "Squire" rose to make his maiden speech. 
"While he was getting himself together for the great- 
est effort of his life," said one of the cronies, "Riley 
rose before the jury and began the argument." He 
reversed the situation, made the "Squire" the defend- 
ant and himself the counsel. 

"Sit down," said the "Squire," pulling Riley by the 
arm; "sit down; I'm your lawyer." 

"Never mind, 'Squire,' " returned Riley soothingly ; 
"be calm; I'll clear you all right." Turning again to 
the jury, Riley was "about to lay the wreath of praise 
on an untarnished name," when the "Squire" stepped 
before him more imperative than ever — "Sit down," 
repeated the "Squire," "sit down — you're crazy!" 

"Your honor," said Riley, addressing the Mayor, 
"I do not make a business of insanity. If I did, you 
would not let me run at large in the streets of Green- 
field." Turning to the "Squire," he was more vehe- 
ment: "Sir, your imputation of lunacy I spurn with 
loathing. Though American born, the blood of Wallace 
and Bruce runs in my veins ; 

'And if thou said'st I am not peer 
To any lord in Scotland here, 
Lowland or Highland, far or near, 
Lord Angus, thou hast lied!' " 



188 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Contrary to all expectations, the "Squire" sat down. 
Riley continued, deftly directing the thought of his 
hearers to himself as culprit and defendant: "My 
Lords and Gentlemen," (turning to the jury) "we have 
arrived at this awful crisis ; 

'Absent thee from felicity awhile, 
In this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, 
To hear my story.' " 

Having bowed to the jury, he made a pretense of 
addressing them at length by recalling the court lan- 
guage of Sampson Brass in Old Curiosity Shop. "It 
is my duty, sirs," he said, smiling roguishly, "in the 
position in which I stand, and as an honorable member 
of the legal profession — the first profession in this 
country, sirs, or in any other country, or in any of the 
planets that shine above us at night and are supposed 
to be inhabitated — it is my duty, sirs, as an honorable 
member of that profession to throw a little light on a 
disagreeable phase of civilization. I would offer some 
reflections," he continued solemnly, "on the poor crab- 
tree of human nature, its weakness and the difficulties 
attending its obedience to moral perceptions." But 
scarcely had he launched his argument when, the whole 
scene ending in an uproar of laughter, the Mayor dis- 
missed the case and cleared the room. 

The poet's "lyre" of after years, Bill Nye, was con- 
vinced this story of "Pegasus in court" was not a tradi- 
tion, "not by a mile," said he, "and a Dutch mile at 
that. How do I know? Because Riley is so provokingly 
silent about it. Mention it and he is as dignified as 
the king of clubs ; he is as grave as the private ceme- 
tery of a deaf and dumb asylum." 

Riley entered his father's law office in the spring and 



ATTORNEY AT LAW 189 

remained until September, 1875. He gave the law a 
second trial the year following, "but that," he said, "did 
not count." It counted for literature however, as will 
be seen in a subsequent chapter. Not all the time was 
devoted to law books — "those inexpressive looking 
books," as Dickens told him, "that never had anything 
to say for themselves." An hour or two each day he 
studied the figures of rhetoric, punctuation and 
prosody, as taught in Harvey's Grammar. "As to 
syntax," said he, "there was nothing to it. I soon dis- 
covered that metaphor and hyperbole were my long 
suit. Prosody was a barren waste — dactyls, spondees, 
iambics and trochaics the acme of confusion. Measure 
and rhythm I had by nature — the names I did not 
need." What was more significant was the new inter- 
pretation he attached to a familiar quotation, one he 
had sometimes seen on the blackboard in the school- 
room. The hour had arrived to put it in practice. He 
began seriously to think for himself: 

. . . . "One good idea 
But known to be his own — 
Better than a thousand gleaned 
From fields by others sown." 

In July the law student's meditations were seriously 
and tragically interrupted. A negro was captured in 
the woods near Blue River, brought to Greenfield 
and hung in the Fair Ground. Riley was not 
one of the mob but was persuaded the next morning 
to go out and see the body. "I would give a United 
States mint," he said, "to efface that picture from my 
memory. Reynolds was persuaded by Boswell to at- 
tend the execution of a robber at Newgate. The people 
criticized him — and rightly. What has art or poetry 



190 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

to do with the murder of a human being!" To 
make the lesson doubly impressive, Riley went on to 
recall the hanging of an outlaw in the Red Buck coun- 
try and how an editor had "duly reported it all and 
sounded a note of warning," as told by Bret Harte. 
"But the beauty of that mid-summer morning," Harte 
had added, "the blessed amity of earth and air and sky, 
the awakened life of the free woods and hills, the joy- 
ous renewal and promise of Nature, and above all, the 
infinite Serenity that thrilled through each, — that was 
not reported, as not being a part of the social lesson." 
To Riley's way of thinking, "laws were too 
frequently made to trap the innocent." The gen- 
tlemen of the courts, as he saw it, were work- 
ing at the wrong end of the problem. "Let the jail go 
the way of the dungeon. Give men better food; give 
them better guides, better fathers and mothers, better 
homes when lying in their cradles." Nor could the 
people fold their arms under the plea of innocence. 
"Like Paul," he said, "they stand by, consenting to the 
death." This view so tragically wrought upon him 
in those student days was later expressed in "His 
Mother," a poem he thought Boards of Pardon and 
others interested in penal institutions had strangely 
overlooked. Briefly the thought in it is this: The 
Law takes the life of a wayward boy for a brutal 
offense, the mother comes for her dead — her own son, 



"God's free gift to her alone 
Sanctified by motherhood. 

"I come not with downward eyes, 
To plead for him shamedly, — 
God did not apologize 
When He gave the boy to me." 






ATTORNEY AT LAW 191 

Thus in anguish the mother cries out against the "red- 
handed" crime of the state. Since the Law has killed 
both mother and son, how will it face the Judge of all 
the earth in the Hereafter ? 

"For days," said Riley, recalling the gloom, "the 
memory of the lynching hung over the law office like 
a London fog." His native town had trampled without 
remorse upon a mother's love — the most sacred and 
precious emotion in life. "A London fog!" he moaned. 
"The bewildering stages of the law and the staggering 
roar of human beings when they turn their fury into 
the screech of the mob — w'y> a London fog is but mist 
over a frog pond compared to that!" There was fog 
everywhere, fog up and down Brandywine, fog on the 
lowlands and on the heights, fog creeping through the 
houses, fog above the church steeples, fog in the eyes 
and hearts and minds of men, fog on the prospect of 
human improvement. It was the outcry of outraged 
feeling, the pang of despair — and it lasted for a fort- 
night after the lynching. Then succeeded a period of 
unrest. As the weeks wore away the law student 
began to sigh again for the unhackneyed existence of 
outdoor life, something wild and full of adventure. He 
was ready to spread his sails wherever any vagrant 
breeze might carry him. "Would that woes might 
end," he murmured, 

"That life might be all poetry 
And weariness a name." 

Indoor employment brought a decline in health. The 
doctors said he could. not live unless he got more sun- 
shine. Friends advised him to travel. "They might 
as well," said he, "have advised me to promote a rail- 
road. I couldn't buy a ticket to the county line." A 



192 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



few wiseacres said, "Stick to the law ; it will bring you 
wealth and fame" ; but health was not to be weighed in 
the balance with profit from a profession. 

"Health, it beats wealth ; 
And what will fame profit us 
i When the same comes to us 

In our sarcophagus ?" 



CHAPTER IX 

WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 

ROMANTIC history in all times has its legends 
of wandering heroes who delight to make their 
beds under starry skies. Again and again they 
beguile the roadsides and airy heights with a scanty 
supply of provisions and an inexhaustible stock 
of ballads and songs. They follow "the traveling 
mountains of the sky." Their hearts respond wildly 
to the "Song of the Road" - 

"For one and all, or high or low, 
Will lead them where they wish to go ; 
And one and all go night and day 
Over the hills and far away." 

The zestful "Song" was in the air over Green- 
field the last week of summer, 1875. Pegasus, 
lean, thirsty and hungry, had been unhitched from 
the post in front of the law office. The gipsy 
spirit was abroad. There were calls from Fort- 
ville, Pendleton, Middletown, Newcastle, Farmland, 
Winchester, Union City, and towns in Ohio, and the 
law student was eager to answer them. The Argo- 
nautic propensity returned — the desire to wrestle with 
the ways of the world and give his fancy range in new 
lands. He literally longed to have no settled place of 
abode, to live and wander about from place to place, 
sleeping at night in barns or at the roadside. Nature 
intended him to be a vagabond. If the worst came to 
193 



194 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

the worst, he, like Washington Irving, could turn 
stroller and pick up a living along the highways. 

"Humanity in its developing stage," an early friend 
wrote him, "is a good deal like yeast — liable to bubble 
up and boil over without giving you warning." He 
was in the bubbling stage. The hour had come to go — 
he was resolved on flight. But how fly? Fancies are 
free — but fares cost money. 

"It is my opinion," said Riley, recurring to those 
days, "that the ways for our feet are found — not made. 
We strut about like peacocks and boast of our achieve- 
ments and fame; 

Is it by man's wisdom that the hawk soareth, 
And stretcheth her wings toward the south? 

There I was in Greenfield, blue as the zenith over my 
head, no money, no way to leave town except walk, 
and right out on the National Road the dust was flying 
and the fates fashioning my way of escape. Down 
that road came the Wizard Oil Company, a band of 
musicians and comedians in a traveling chariot drawn 
by horses that cantered and ran as if they were bal- 
lasted with quicksilver. The manager of the company 
had discharged a man at Knightstown. I took the va- 
cant place, mounted to a seat beside the manager and 
bowled away to Fortville. 1 ' 

The company, hailing from Lima, Ohio, had been an 
annual visitor to Greenfield since 1870. The local 
Adelphian Band had caught the theatrical spirit and 
gone straight to the hearts of Greenfielders with an 
original number entitled "The Wizard Oil Man." The 
"Wizards" had mingled freely with Greenfield musi- 
cians, sometimes helping out in serenades and playing 
at socials and church entertainments. They usually 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 195 

appeared the week of the Fair, but Riley had no assur- 
ance that they would reappear in 1875. "All was 
hanging," he remarked, "on what the wind said." 

Lovers of their native heath may be inclined to re- 
proach Riley for leaving Greenfield with such glee. 
Truth to tell, never before nor afterward did he leave 
with such satisfaction. He was sick in body but also 
sick at heart. He was a fugitive from the "London 
fog." Before leaving he went to bid a chum good-by. 
"Quit the town," said he half seriously; "stay here 
and they'll swing you to a tree in the Fair Ground." 
But the joys of the road soon restored his spirits to a 
hopeful view of the human species. Within two weeks 
his affection for the old town was as warm as ever. 

Before he reached Fortville he was in a roguish 
vein. He was one of "the jolly party of chirping vaga- 
bonds." The Wizard Company gave him a brimming 
welcome, "smiled all round in a gust of friendship," 
glad to roam the country with such a merry-maker. 
"He waded immediately," said one of the comedians, 
"boot-top deep into our affections. We laughed at his 
stories; everybody humored him, everybody bet on 
him." Before nightfall his heart was running riot 
with pleasure as in the "Standard Remedy" days three 
years before. He "snapped at verse as ravenously as 
if he were a crafty lawyer nipping the unguarded ad- 
mission of a witness." His talk was in superlatives. 
Like Stevenson, he proclaimed himself a bird of Para- 
dise. He was lured forward and backward by an un- 
bridled imagination. He shared the destiny of all the 
living — he chased his favorite phantom. The highway 
fairly scintillated with jingle. 

Feigning he was a thousand miles from home and 
calling back down the dusty road to a resident of his 



196 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

native town, who had just swished by the wagon like 
a "highway comet," he craved a special favor: 

"If you ever live to see 
The sunny town of Greenfield — take a message there 

for me, 
Take a message and a token to some distant friends of 

mine, 
For I was born at Greenfield, the year of Forty-nine." 

At Pendleton he came from a barber shop with : 

"Greenfield barbers cut my hair 
And Pendleton and Hewitt — 
But none kin cut it anywhere 
Like Fortville Frank kin do it." 

Near Newcastle, passing a bareheaded camper at the 
roadside who was curling his mustache before a 
broken mirror, he tossed his nomadic brother a sam- 
ple of his dialect — 

"I washed my face and combed my hair 
Keerf ully over the bald place there ; 
Put on a collar — fixed up some, 
And went to church — I did — by gum !" 

Pausing a moment near the site of an old trading 
point where tradition said Red Men had been burnt at 
the stake, he mourned their fate. However they had 
not died in vain. It was something that comedians 
could stand on mother earth where the Red martyrs 
had perished, 

"Where from their ashes may be made 
The violets of their native land." 

It was great joy to pen capricious lines. Great pleas- 
ure, too, to make pencil sketches, a row of sunflowers 
for instance, "chinning the fence" like happy children 
at the roadside. 






WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 197 

Driving right and left over undulating counties with 
September skies above — it was like a cruise on a bil- 
lowy sea. Fairy isles were ever looming up mistily 
in the far-away. The Argonaut was steeped in an 
atmosphere of dreams — '"such gracious intervals for 
reflection," he remarked of the time, "such endless 
hours of languor." He was a lover fanned by the 
warm winds of the deep — ■ 

"And so we glide 
Careless of wave or wind, 
Or change of any kind, 
Or turn of any tide. 

Where shall we land?" 

After a cruise of two weeks he landed at Union City, 
on the state line, "a fussy old-hen-of-a-town," he 
wrote two years later, "clucking over its little brood 
of railroads, as though worried to see them running 
over the line, and bristling with the importance of its 
charge." The immediate view of the place was almost 
entirely concealed from him by a big square-faced hotel 
— not an attractive town although it had "one division 
of the Sons of Temperance, one factory, two news-, 
papers, two banks, two hotels, three lodges, five 
churches and nine dry goods stores and groceries." 
Notwithstanding its unsightly appearance, Union City 
promptly took a seat in the family circle of Riley an- 
nals. Here, within a few weeks "in the rear of the 
spacious and brightly illuminated store, Bower's Em- 
porium," he found material for his most popular sketch 
in prose, "A Remarkable Man." 

On arrival, he immediately took time to answer a 
letter from his Greenfield chum, J. J. Skinner, who of 
all the friends left behind was the one most likely to 
send good news from home. His friend was not living 



198 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

on "the shadowy side of the street." The letter, omit- 
ting "foreign items/' is Riley's own account of the 
two-weeks' outing: 

Union City, Sept. 14, 1875. 
Dear John: 

We have just driven in here and it is good in finding 
your letter in waiting for me. It is full of news "and 
that of the very best." I am having first rate times 
considering the boys I am with. They, you know, are 
hardly my kind, but they are pleasant and agreeable 
and with Doctor Townsend for sensible talk occasion- 
ally, I have really a happy time. We sing along the 
road when we tire of talking, and when we tire of 
that and the scenery, we lay ourselves along the seats 
and dream the happy hours away as blissfully as the 
time honored baby in the sugar trough. I shall not 
attempt an explicit description of all that I have passed 
through, but will give a brief outline. We "struck" 
Fortville first, as you already know — stayed over night 
and came near dying of loneliness. There is where I 
"squeeled" on street business, that is, that portion of 
it where I was expected to bruise the bass drum. Well, 
I have been "in clover" ever since, and do what I 
please and when I please. I made myself thoroughly 
solid with "Doxy" (the playful patronymic I have 
given the Doctor) by introducing a blackboard system 
of advertising which promises to be the best card out. 
I have two boards about three feet by four, which 
during the street concert, I fasten on the sides of the 
wagon and letter and illustrate during the performance 
and through the lecture. There are dozens in the crowd 
that stay to watch the work going on that otherwise 
would drift from the fold during the drier portion of 
the Doctor's harangue. Last night at Winchester I 
made a decided sensation by making a rebus of the well- 
known lines from Shakespeare — 

"Why let pain your pleasures spoil, 
For want of Townsend's Magic Oil?" — 

with a life-sized bust of the author ; and at another time 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 199 

a bottle of Townsend's Cholera Balm on legs, and a very- 
bland smile on its cork, making a "Can't come it" jest- 
ure at the skeleton Death, who drops his scythe and 
hour glass and turns to flee. Oh! I'm stared at like 
the fat woman on the side-show banner. Sunday night 
we stayed at Morristown, a little place with two stores 
and one church, I shan't include hotel, although the 
proprietor of the coop we lodged in insisted on calling 
it that. There was nothing left us here but to plunge 
into the vortex of dissipation the inhabitants, or na- 
tives rather, indulge themselves; and so we went to 
church, 

"And heard the Parson pray and preach, 
And heard his daughter's voice 
Singing in the village choir, 
For we had no other choice." 

We gave them a little music in the morning in our glee 
at leaving the town, and far back in the perspective 
I caught the flutter of rags on a tow-headed boy. 
I breathed a silent prayer for my deliverance. Ah, my 
boy ! the feeling of the breeze on my face. 

We shall stay here during the Fair doing street work 
at night only in the city. I was here you know some 
two or three years since and I expect to find a girl 
or two who will still remember me, but it doesn't really 
matter whether they do or not, for a smile or two sel- 
dom fails to "bring them down" — especially Fair time. 
I have met several of the boys I used to know. I am in 
for a good time. You see I have nothing to do but 
my boards and I sometimes drift away from the wagon 
for hours and "Doxy, white as snow, never kicks." 

The law student had now been away from home a 
fortnight. He was returning to pleasures of the road. 
The relief from the gloomy solitude of the law office — 
how could he sufficiently thank Heaven for that. Little 
Nell with the dream of fields and woods and riversides 
ahead was not more joyous. 

"I shall never forget," said Riley, "how ashamed I 



200 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

was in Fortville to have a cousin of mine see me beating 
the bass drum with that show. But that was the 
blur of a moment. It turned out just as I had fore- 
seen. The Doctor was a good fellow and he helped me 
amazingly. By the time we struck Ohio I was strong 
and well. He had a way of giving a healthy moral twist 
to what we were doing. His black chargers were the 
apple of his eye. 'Brave horsemanship, my boy/ he 
would fondly say as we bowled along, 'gives rise to 
sparks of resolution and wakens the mind to noble 
action.' " 

Doctor Townsend was a pioneer in his line, "a gem 
in the rough," his comedians said, "as loving and kind 
in heart as any man living/' He traveled in good style. 
In addition to his fine horses, his equipment consisted 
of a covered wagon with side seats for his company — 
and always an ample supply of the "Cure Alls," the 
"life savers," such as Magic Oil, Sarsaparilla, Liver 
Pills, Cholera Balm, and Cough King. Of musical 
instruments there were the bass drum, the bass horn, 
banjo, violin, tubia, and B-flat cornet. 

The Doctor was a "proficient B-flat," and a good 
singer of either bass or soprano. "Riley was a good 
singer,"- said a comedian, "but would not risk his voice 
or reputation in the open air." He was content to 
teach other members of the company rare old songs 
such as "Our Uncle Sam," and at the evening perform- 
ance charm his hearers on the violin with such old- 
timers as "The Devil's Jig," "Fisher's Hornpipe/' and 
"The Arkansas Traveler" on four strings, "with 
apologies to Ole Bull." 

The company started for the next town in the morn- 
ing, arranging to reach it at noon just as the "scholars" 
came from school. The toot of a horn woke up the 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 201 

farm-houses along the road and circulars were scattered 
broadcast. At the edge of town the band began to 
play and parade the streets. The Doctor gave two 
"lectures" a day, one in the afternoon, but the principal 
one at night, when they lit the torch lamps and brought 
out the decorations. In county-seats, when it was Fair 
week, the people came in throngs. When they crowded 
the performers, Riley with his blackboards and cartoons 
was elevated to a position on the wagon to divide 
honors with the Doctor. In Ohio, Riley was introduced 
as the "Hoosier Wizard," and the performance he gave 
with his voice and brush was remembered when other 
features of the show were forgotten. "He was the 
center of light," it was said, — 

"The weary had life, and the hungry had bliss, 
The mourners had cheer, — and lovers a kiss." 

Fair week the throng was always interesting. The 
weather being warm, the women and girls wore white 
dresses, and, said a spectator, "they were ornamented 
with the furbelows of fashion." "When the moon rose 
to blend her light with the decorations and costumes," 
said Riley, "I was transported to the land of the 
Arabian Nights. It was an Aladdin show." Sometimes 
he recited "Tradin* Joe," then entitled "Courting on the 
Kankakee." Sometimes he appeared in a character 
sketch, assuming the role of an old man or a school- 
boy. Occasionally, turning up his coat collar and wrap- 
ping a red bandana about his neck, he entertained his 
hearers from the steps of the wagon, introducing an 
original ballad, followed by a comic song. "The bal- 
lads," said he, years after, "came from incidents and 
experiences on the road. They were written on dull, 
hot Sundays in selfish country towns where the church 



202 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

bells barked at strangers while lazy men lolled round in 
narrow bits of shade." 

At Fort Recovery where the rain drove the come- 
dians to a hall above a drug store, the lads and lassies 
danced to the music of Riley's violin. At Covington, 
where they remained several days, entertainments 
were given on the top floor of the new school building. 
At another point the Doctor succeeded in renting a 
church for his show. 

The "Wizards" were the Troubadours of 1875. Like 
their brothers in sunny France, their wits were sharp- 
ened, their versatility broadened and their store of 
songs and anecdotes replenished by what they saw and 
heard. Their merry-making was alluring. "Bright 
eyes flashed for them and many times picket gates 
swung softly open as they approached." 

They reached the Magic Oil laboratory the first week 
in October. For the rest of the season Lima was to 
be the hub of their travels. Fifty or sixty miles out 
touched the rim of the wheel. Again Riley cast a 
backward look to Greenfield. The Forty-Niner was a 
man in years but in spirit a boy. He was not yet de- 
tached from the influence of his "salad days," as in- 
stanced in extracts from a letter written on his birth- 
day at 

Lima, Ohio, October 7, 1875. 
Dear John : (To J. J. Skinner.) 

I shall not enter into any particulars with regard to 
the pleasure with which your letter was received — let 
it suffice you to know that I gorged it "blood raw," I 
was so hungry to hear from you. What a gust of news 
it contained ; it almost raised my hair — two first class 
sensations spiced with little breezy notes which I de- 
voured with special relish. I thought this place with- 
out an equal in regard to its "increase in crime," but 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 203 

I must knock under for the present for old Greenfield. 
A saloon keeper was shot here last week and no particu- 
lar stir made about it, nor the man missed. There may 
be an ordinance though that all saloon keepers be killed 
when found without muzzles. And just here let me 
remark that what little prosperity I now enjoy in the 
shape of a plug hat is an intimation of my estrange- 
ment from the saloon keeper. May God help me on my 
good way. 

I "stand in" with the best men of the town and am 
rapidly growing in public favor. I'll be out in book 
form yet. I wish you were here to room with me at 
the nobbiest little boarding house in the world — every- 
thing is perfect even to the old lady, the hostess, who 
capers under the jocund patronymic of "Aunt Jane." 
Speaking of boarding houses, how is the Test House? 
I would like to strike old 13 to-night with its enchanted 
bed. I need something of that kind now. I think of 
you often and of the rare old times we had, and I 
still nurse a hope that we may have a grand rehearsal 
of them again. Say to Angie that she haunts me; I 
saw her in a dream the other night and she had wings 
seven feet long and I was just going to ask her to fly 
some when the breakfast bell rang and 

She vanished as slick 

As a slight of hand trick." 

As the Wizard Company moved on through western 
Ohio, Riley's interest in towns subsided. His want of 
curiosity, which distinctly characterized his mature 
years, seems to date from this time. When the com- 
pany made ado over historical things, he remained pas- 
sive. Some said he was in a trance. He was, if by 
trance is meant (as he wrote) 

"The harvest of a quiet eye 
That broods and sleeps upon the heart." 

Fort Recovery, a center of maneuvers by "Mad 
Anthony Wayne"; Piqua, or Pickaway, the Indian 



204 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

village on Mad River, the birthplace of Tecumseh; 
Greenville, the site of the Great Indian Treaty where 
"speeches were made by Red Men," the comedians told 
him, "that would have done honor to the civilized legis- 
lative assemblies of the world" ; Sidney, Bellefontaine, 
Van Wert, Findlay — all were passed with provoking 
indifference. "He was listless and drowsy," said his 
friends, "as the buzzard that swung around upon the 
atmosphere." But when they reached Upper San- 
dusky he woke up. "Now," said he, "you have come 
to a town with history worth recording." It was hal- 
lowed ground. Charles Dickens, on his American tour, 
had passed that way by stage from Cincinnati to the 
Lakes. Riley wanted to see the old Log Inn where Dick- 
ens stayed over night, the "large, low, ghostly room in 
which he slept with his dressing-case full of gold, 
gleaned from public readings." He wanted to see the 
Indians with shaggy ponies that reminded the novelist 
of English gipsies — see where the novelist traveled in 
the thunder-storm at nights— and the illusions in the 
black-stump clearings. It was too late to see the cordu- 
roy road where "the ponderous carriage fell from log 
to log," affording the novelist the sensation he might 
have in an omnibus if attempting to go to the top 
of a cathedral. It is good description if read with 
but half the interest Riley bestowed on it : — 

"The stumps of trees," says Dickens, "are a curious 
feature in American travelling. The varying illusions 
they represent to the unaccustomed eye as it grows 
dark, are quite astonishing in their number and reality. 
Now there is a Grecian urn erected in the center of a 
lonely field ; now there is a woman weeping at a tomb ; 
now a very common-place old gentleman in white waist- 
coat, with thumb thrust into each armhole of his coat; 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 205 

now a student poring on a book; now a crouching ne- 
gro ; now a horse, a dog, a cannon, an armed man ; a 
hunch-back throwing off his cloak and stepping forth 
into the light. They were often entertaining to me/' 
so the novelist continues, "as so many glasses in a 
magic lantern, and never took their shapes at my bid- 
ding, but seemed to force themselves upon me, whether 
I would or no ; and strange to say, I sometimes realized 
in them counterparts of figures once familiar to me in 
pictures attached to childish books, forgotten long ago. 

"It soon became dark, however. The trees were so 
close together that their dry branches rattled against 
the coach on either side, and obliged us all to keep 
our heads within. It lightened, too, for three whole 
hours ; each flash being very bright, and blue and long ; 
and as the vivid streaks came darting in among the 
crowded branches, and the thunder rolled gloomily 
above the treetops, one could scarcely help thinking 
that there were better neighborhoods at such a time 
than the thick woods. 

"At length," Dickens concludes, "between ten and 
eleven o'clock at night, a few feeble lights appeared 
in the distance, and Upper Sandusky, an Indian village, 
where we were to stay till morning, lay before us." 

Upper Sandusky afforded Riley an opportunity for 
the rambles of imagination. Dickens' description of 
the thunder-storm he enjoyed thoroughly. He could 
match it with a personal experience while traveling 
by night through an Indiana forest. The black-stump 
clearings with their illusions in the twilight (not the 
identical fields, but others like them) were there in the 
vicinity of Sandusky, awakening the same sensations 
in Riley that pleased the novelist. His heart went back 
to his boyhood days and his unshaken faith in fairies. 



206 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

'That faith," said he, when he began to maintain a 
fairy interest in his work, "had a great deal to do in 
turning my mind to poetry. In my poems I have tried 
to get back into the spirit of those dreams. My father 
did not have a large library, but a choice one, and 
among the books were some that he forbade me to read. 
They were books of fairy tales and mythology. Soon 
as he was out of sight, however, I was again sporting 
with the elves and fairies. It was a wonderful world ; 
I was charmed with it because I thought it was real. By 
reading the tales I developed my imagination. I saw 
fairies and elves everywhere. I mark this as the hap- 
piest period of my life, and I wish now that I could 
believe in those little sprites, and that the charm had 
never been dispelled. Why, I would watch a stump at 
a distance for hours, as Dickens did, and imagine I 
could see a little boy like myself running about it, and 
then he would disappear and I would go and pry around 
to find the magic stairway which led down to Pluto's 
realm." 

While Riley grew less enthusiastic over the towns, 
his interest in the Wizard Company did not diminish, 
particularly in the proprietor. Each day he and the Doc- 
tor grew more companionable. They cracked jokes, it 
was said, "with the freedom of the seas." And they 
recalled fairy tales — one with a personal application. 
The Doctor was the "Puppet Showman," a traveling 
theater director, and his comedians the puppets whom 
he called before the curtain after the play and hauled 
from town to town in his wagon. There was the mys- 
tery about the piece of iron that fell through the spiral 
and became magnetic (as told in the tale) . "How does 
it happen? Nobody knows. The spirit comes upon the 
iron but whence does it come? It is a miracle. 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 207 

So it is with mankind. People are made to tumble 
through the spiral of this world, and the spirit comes 
upon them, and there stands a Napoleon or Luther, or 
a man of that kind. Men are miracles ; the whole world 
is a series of miracles but we in our pride or ignorance 
call them every-day matters." 

All ignorantly, seeing all as through a glass darkly, 
Riley was tumbling through the spiral of events in his 
own time as Napoleon and Luther in their time. And 
those events (call it miraculous if you like — Riley did), 
those events, uncouth, unconventional, rudimental, 
magnetized him with the spirit of harmony. 

Thus outside the university was he being educated, 
not for purposes of the law or statesmanship but for 
flights in the realm of song. Faithful to the Muse, he 
was obeying impulses received from his favorite 
"Painters and Sculptors." The old books had lost none 
of their impelling power. Romney at the same age, 
twenty-six, was classed among the illiterate, yet knowl- 
edge he certainly had. Like him Riley was gifted with 
native talents, a keen eye, and a fertile imagination. 
The Unseen Powers were keeping him in constant touch 
with people and things. In short, they were passing 
him through "the spiral of this world." At every 
street corner and cross-roads he gleaned something 
from somebody. "There are no common men," he re- 
plied when blamed for association with common folks. 
"I take notice that Jesus sought out the so-called poor 
and ignorant. They were just the kind of people He 
wanted. They were not poor or ignorant in His sight." 
Like his father, Riley liked few things better than a 
talk with a blacksmith, carpenter or farmer — a section 
boss or a janitor. He found threads of gold in the 
riffraff. He never entered a cabin or traveled in a 



208 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

farm wagon, never talked with a plowman, or loitered 
with a weaver at the loom without learning 
something he did not know. Like Robert Burns, 
whose genius he rivaled in so many ways, he "was 
sent into the world to see and observe ; he easily com- 
pounded with any one who showed him mature nature 
in a different light from what he had seen before. The 
joy of his heart was to study men, their manners and 
their ways, and for this darling object he cheerfully 
sacrificed every other consideration." 

"Riley is out making a fool of himself somewhere," 
said a wiseacre back in Greenfield; "it is his one ac- 
complishment." But Riley knew what he was about 
when he joined himself to the Wizard Oil Company. 
Good companion that he was, he took from them and 
the people along the way more than he gave. He found 
opportunity to give expression to the irrepressible flow 
of joy in his nature. As the days passed, his soul 
filled with tender sensations. He was "tremblingly 
alive to the beauty of everything" in nature and human 
nature, "with faith in all that was good and enthusiasm 
for all that was lovely." Instead of regrets, the Riley 
wanderings should occasion rejoicing, for the settled 
and reposed man (according to Plato) knocks in vain 
at the gate of Poesy. 

The author of "The Spirit of Poetry," college gradu- 
ate though he was, did not divorce it from the wayward 
days of youth. Riley prolonged those days. Wherever 
he found hearts filled with good-will, homely humor 
and festive enjoyment, there he found poetry. Often- 
times it was crude but poetry nevertheless and he was 
always happy when he found it in obscure nooks and 
crevices. The stately garden, cultivated and enhanced 
by the hand of man, was "a thing of beauty" for a 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 209 

time, but who would strip the earth of its tangled for- 
ests and the wild beauty of fields and woodlands? At 
a subsequent date in his career, recalling his Ohio days, 
Riley sought to give a transcript of those wanderings, 
emphasizing in humorous vein, the value of poetry. It 
is a prose fragment — a few names with which he dis- 
guised the "puppet showmen," — the title and a begin- 
ning. "The scene," he said, "was the second floor of a 
food joint in Ohio." He entitled the fragment: 

A Session of "the singing pilgrims." 
members (Mainly present) 
T. L. Wilson A. E. Sargeant 

P. B. Miller Chas. Marks 

Robt. McCrea A. Hilton 

D. G. Lewis T. Van Arden 

M. W. Smith J. 0. Edgerton 

J. W. Foxcroft L. C. Graves 

Scene— Back: loft— "The Little dordemia" Ail-Night 
Restaurant. 

Time, 10 P. M. — Spread ordered for 2 A. M. 

Mr. Lewis: somewhat timidly, rising from the 
chair and looking painfully at home in his new posi- 
tion as president — 

Gentlemen — I — er — that is : — The gift of Song is, as 
you are doubtless aware, a divine gift — a sacred gift, 
I may say; a gift, in fact that in whomsoever's posi- 
tion it may rest, I care not, a gift, I say, that should 
be regarded by him — or her — as a hallowed trust, at 
once elevating and ennobling. We who — are met thus 
together are, as I take it, avowedly — of ourselves, at 
least — disciples, and practitioners — each in his own 
humble degree — of this glorious art. This Glorious Art, 
I say, of — -of Song! (A mild stimulus of applause). 



210 JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY 

Now I am not going to trespass upon time which may 
be much better employed in the discussion of your 
papers for the evening — (cries of "Go on!" and "Come 
off!" dubiously blended — the speaker bowing and con- 
tinuing) , but, giving way to your generous encourage- 
ment, I do want to dwell — for a brief moment at least — 
on Poetry and its true mission — as, I think, we should 
most seriously consider it. Now I am, as you know, 
unable, in this way, to express myself at all times as 
clearly as I would like — I can't, as you know, think on 
my feet — • 

Mr. Van Arden : / could, if I had them ; and would 
"think on" them — very seriously. (Laughter.) 

Mr. Lewis : Yes. The gentleman might even think 
with them and find it an improvement upon his brain 
process. (Sensation.) 

(This beginning of what the "Hoosier Wizard" 
failed to complete provokes a sense of something lost. 
One breathes a sigh of regret that it remains unfin- 
ished. Humorous literature might have had a prose 
sketch equal to his caricature of the educator in "The 
Object Lesson.") 

The crisp days of November found the Wizard Com- 
pany among the upper-tributaries of the Great Miami. 
Although the nights were icy and the winds sometimes 
raw and vindictive, Riley was inclined to continue the 
voyage. He had regained health. 

"Still on they went, and as they went, 
More rough the billows grew ; 
And rose and fell, a greater swell, 
And he was swelling, too" — 

swelling in size and weight, his heart swelling with 
gratitude. When the Company left Greenfield, three 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 211 

months before, he was called the "Little Man." Now 
he was not so small. The Doctor considered him a "Big 
Man" — but the comedians were ignorant of the Doc- 
tor's meaning. At Tippecanoe City, Thanksgiving 
week, they were overtaken by "Squaw Winter" and 
decided to return to Lima. 

Although off the road, the days at Lima were not 
monotonous. Riley declined to help the Doctor shingle 
a house. "You've tried to make a great many things 
out of me, Doctor," said he, "but you can't make a car- 
penter." 

"Opposed to manual labor?" asked the Doctor. 

"Constitutionally." 

"How about painting signs?" 

"Timely suggestion ; I will stain, ingrain, illuminate 
or bedizen — paint the town vermillion if you'll muzzle 
the Grand Jury." 

The upshot was that Riley, once more in overalls, 
was set to work with a bucket of yellow paint in the 
laboratory. The signs were fantastic illuminations on 
glass, and many set afloat the virtues of Magic Oil in 
verse. When fancies were thick-coming he wrote 
them in rhyme on the wall. Then he made cartons for 
bottles. He started in to help the chemists prepare 
remedies for the coming season, but could not mix com- 
pounds. As a maker of worm lozenges he was a fail- 
ure. He worked when he felt like it. He was humored 
to a degree that brought criticism from other work- 
men. If the Doctor found Riley sitting by the stove 
with his legs crossed and his feet higher than his head, 
he credited him on the books with an hour of medita- 
tion — and more verses on the wall. "As a comedian he 
beats them all," said the Doctor, referring to Riley's 
success as an entertainer on the road. His opinion of 



212 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

him as an advertiser appears in the following testi- 
monial : 

C. M. TOWNSEND 

Wholesale Dealer 

and Proprietor of 

TOWNSEND'S MAGIC OIL, WORM, CANDY, 
KING OF COUGHS, and HEADACHE PILLS. 

No. 171 Market Street. 
(Lima, Ohio.) 



I take great pleasure in saying that James 
W. Riley is the most efficient Advertiser I have 
ever had in my employ. Throughout an engage- 
ment of four months' duration I have found him 
ever prompt, industrious and reliable. 

C. M. TOWNSEND. 

In the laboratory Riley formed an attachment for 
James B. Townsend, the Doctor's son, then a student 
of law, whom he met in October. It was a friendship 
at first sight. As he sat with his new friend by the 
kitchen stove, he became interested in Buckle's History 
of Civilization, and De Tocqueville's Democracy in 
America. Just what relation those mighty tomes have 
to ballads and lyrics does not appear, but the Muse was 
indulgent. One afternoon while walking and talking 
together, the autumn leaves whirling round them, they 
looked seriously into their futures. Each was enter- 
ing the transitional stage of his life. Each saw 
that he was cut out for something better. "The 
work they were doing was beneath them. They would 
quit sign-painting and working on job wagons, for oc- 
cupations more worthy of their talents." They parted 
in December, one to become mayor of a city, receiver 
for a railroad, and so forth ; the other, by devious paths, 
to rise to eminence in literature. 



•* 




's^iE 



The Wizard Oil Company 
A crowd the week of the County Fair 




Donald Grant Mitchell 
Editor of Hearth and Home 



lWITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 213 

James Townsend was reared in a model American 
home. While in Lima, Riley was an inmate of that 
home. Thus he and the family were afforded the mem- 
ory of a rare and genial companionship. Happily the 
reader has left to him a picture of those days. "Riley 
was a gentleman/' said Mr. Townsend, "a little odd 
but never meaning any harm. He kept himself scrupu- 
lously clean. He had sandy-colored hair. His mus- 
tache of the same hue was long and heavy and when he 
played the violin it spread out and mingled with the 
strings. His music awakened deep feelings. What he 
did with his hands was done with ease and grace. He 
handled his feet and legs more awkwardly. I recall 
the peculiar 'Abe Lincoln' twist he gave his feet when 
he sat down and crossed them over the back of a 
chair. He was natural and sun-shiny, then at intervals 
a little sombre and sad, a perfect manifestation of 
nature, weaving into each day natural and simple 
pleasures, his face wreathed in smiles and breaking out 
into the most intoxicating laughter. Then again he 
would have long spells of silence. His gifts were mar- 
velous — all were there, not yet wide awake. Some- 
times he would read verses to my sister and laugh and 
blush as he confessed to their authorship. When we 
read books together, he would amplify and illuminate 
the author's meaning in a most exceptional manner. 
To conclude — he was a sensitive plant, wholly uncon- 
ventional. He dared not give too much thought and 
study to the writings of others for fear that his own 
utterances would take on their peculiar hue. He was 
strictly individual. He thought best when left alone, 
untrammelled by the world, or others. My lament is 
that, owing to his timidity and modesty, his fellowmen 



214 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

have not been permitted to look into the great world of 
prose and philosophy concealed in his heart." 

When they were talking on weighty subjects in the 
woods, Mr. Townsend remembered that Riley stood 
with uncovered head, and in an eager, listening atti- 
tude. He had large, lustrous eyes — the eyes of "The 
Remarkable Man" — that had that dreamy far-off look, 
seeing what is described, though it is buried under 
the pyramids of Egypt. 

"It is not doubted that men have a home in that place 
where each one has established his heart and the sum 
of his possessions ; whence he will not depart if nothing 
calls him away; whence if he has departed he seems 
to be a wanderer, and if he returns he ceases to wan- 
der." Thus Riley had repeated the words while spin- 
ning along the highway with the Doctor, priding him- 
self on the one thing in "Conditions from Civil Law," 
he could remember. He had smiled over "the sum of 
his possessions," and the comedians had heartily en- 
joyed the joke. After working a month in the labora- 
tory he began to think seriously of home. "Greenfield," 
he said, "had been but a speck on the map of Retrospec- 
tion — so novel had been my experience on the road. I 
had not made haste to return. Like a checker player, 
I had one fixed purpose in mind and that was to take 
plenty of time." But with the coming of winter days 
and calls from home, came also the desire to cease wan- 
dering. One of the calls was from the Sunday-school. 
The similarity in the illustrations of the golden text 
was growing monotonous. "Our blackboard," wrote a 
friend, "does not possess the beauty it did when it re- 
ceived the magic touch of your artistic fingers." The 
children were sighing for the illustrated "Whisper 
Songs" and "Lessons for Little People." In the spring 



WITH THE WIZARD OIL COMPANY 215 

before leaving Greenfield, he had been a wizard at the 
blackboard. "What he did with a piece of yellow chalk 
and the unicorn," said a Sunday-school goer, "was to 
say the least unorthodox. Such flying colors ! He made 
the blackboard look like a millinery establishment. To 
the children it was as good as a magic-lantern show." 
An added reason for his leaving was that 
he had become too conspicuous in Lima for per- 
sonal comfort. Of late the "Hoosier," to use his own 
words, "had been scrutinized by strangers as critically 
as a splinter in the thumb of a near-sighted man." At 
Lima Riley had his "seedy overcoat" improved 
by lining it with astrakhan. That coat, it was 
said, "made the farmers green with envy; it set 
the style for fur-lined overcoats in Allen County." 
The public eye becoming a little too obtrusive, 
Riley resolved to cross over into "the selvedge of 
his native state," lift his voice and hat, and shout de- 
liverance from "the land of perpetual strangers." In 
the early dusk of a December evening, he stepped from 
the train at Union City, and after a few days with "a 
remarkable man" boarded the "Bob Tail Accommoda- 
tion" for Hancock County. 

The Greenfield Democrat, which had already begun 
what proved to be a half-century record of the poet's 
goings and comings, was awake as usual. For five 
years it had struck off Riley locals with the fidelity of 
a clock. December 23, 1875, it struck again: "James 
W. Riley arrived in the city on Friday last. He is look- 
ing fine and enjoying excellent health." 



CHAPTER X 

SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 

A POLITE city, according to Dean Swift, should 
have its Grub Street, a blind alley fitted up at 
the public expense as an apartment for the 
Muses. A private street, as Doctor Johnson put it, 
for writers of small histories, temporary poems, 
and inferior literary productions. Greenfield had 
such an alley in the seventies of the last century. Ac- 
cording to Riley, its assets were a garret, a paintshop, 
two or three gloomy hotel rooms, a lead pencil and the 
"Respectfully Declined" papers of the Debut Club. Lia- 
bilities unknown — not obtainable. He recalled that the 
alley was a refuge for a writer pursued by the town 
marshal for debt. "Often," said he, gleefully exag- 
gerating, "I ran down an alley with an officer behind 
me. Beware of debt," he moaned, mimicking Horace 
Greeley ; "he is a rich man who owes nothing and has 
a chance to earn his daily bread." Those insolvent days 
throw light on a bill bearing the date of October, 
1891, from the proprietor of a hotel in Kentucky, 
who once was the landlord of the old Dunbar House. 
"Do you remember," wrote the proprietor, "the fellow 
who had the old Greenfield Hotel and that you dropped 
in sometimes to see him away back in the Hayes cam- 
paign? I find on my books a charge of $3.40." 

In 1876 the poet unable to pay for a week's lodging ; 
in 1891, his books and his royalties running into the 
thousands — the author eager to pay all bills, large or 
216 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 217 

small, old or new, visible or obscure. Here is the con- 
trast of fifteen years. Truly a typical instance of 
hardships in the literary field, another lesson in small 
beginnings. 

His Grub Street effusions include embryonic things 
from all quarters of the sky, a "mass of metrical 
baubles" that were too frail and futile to last. Within 
a few years, like dry forest leaves, they went "flying 
and scurrying God knows where." Among the first 
was "The Poet's Realm," to which Riley subscribed 
himself "Edyrn," his first nom de plume — ten eight- 
line stanzas, describing a dreamland somewhere in 
space where the soul drifts away on the breeze like a 
fairy wisp of thistledown leaving the heart an empty 
husk "on the coast of Care and Pain." Sunbeams 
glanced on the walls of a palace in a garden of vines and 
flowers and fountains. There was the ebb and flow 
of music, fair ladies and lords and the rustle of scarfs 
and plumes, a courtly company and melody going mad 
at a banquet: 

"Clang the harp in its wildest key, 
And shatter the bugle's throat ; 
Fling the flags from the balcony 
And the bridge across the moat: 
In his goodly realm so broad and wide, 
The Poet hath no fear — 
Ragged, haggard and hungry-eyed 
He is lord and master here." 

When Riley wrote these lines he was purblind, as he 
himself admits in a subsequent chapter. "Not there, 
not there, my child," repeated the Muse; "not in 
distant space or in foreign lands. It has been done 
that way before. Your realm is here at home, right 
under your feet. You 'are to live on the coast of Care 



218 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

and Pain but your heart is not to be an empty husk. 
You are not to sing of palaces and lords and ladies. You 
are to sing of log cabins, of children, of common folk in 
the kitchen, in the shop and at the plow." 

Riley soon tired of "Edyrn" and within a year sub- 
scribed himself "Jay Whit." Some ten years elapsed 
before that April day in 1881, when, after writing 
"The Ripest Peach is Highest on the Tree," he pulled 
the joints out of his name, and first signed himself 
James Whitcomb Riley. 

After "The Poet's Realm," Riley wrote "A Retro- 
spect," in several stanzas of which he wanders back to 
the scenes of boyhood, back to the house where he was 
born, back to the swing under the locust tree, back to 
the schoolroom, 

"And down through the woods to the swimming hole, 
Where the big, white, hollow old sycamore grows." 

After "A Retrospect" came "Philiper Flash," ten ten- 
line stanzas, which Mrs. Rhoda Millikan, who of all the 
Greenfield mothers had a right to know, said half was 
his personal experience. Riley said a third, which 
makes it certain that a fraction at least was biograph- 
ical. 

"Young Philiper Flash was a promising lad, 
His intentions were good — but oh, how sad, 

For a person to think 

How the veriest pink 
And bloom of perfection may turn out bad." 

Young Flash was the son of a moral father who 
"shaved notes in a barberous way," and vauntingly 
prided himself on making the boy do what he was told ; 
the pet of an excellent mother "with a martyr look," 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 219 

who loved him so tenderly she could cry when he 
stumped his toe. 

"She stroked his hair 
With such mother care 
When the dear little angel learned to swear." 

The way the fast young man jingled the dollars and 
dimes and strewed his wealth was the talk of the land. 
Things went from bad to worse. 

"Young Philiper Flash, on a winterish day, 
Was published a bankrupt, so they say; 

And as far as I know 

I suppose it was so, 
For matters went on in a singular way"-^ 

in short, went to smash, and young Philiper Flash had 
to begin life over again. 

Fortunate, indeed, said Higginson, that poets unin- 
tentionally preserve for us samples of their early crude- 
ness, — and unfortunate indeed, added his friend, that 
they intentionally preserve samples of their late crude- 
ness and offer it to the public as poetry. That we have 
samples of Riley's authorship, early or late, is not 
directly due to any sense of value he put on them but to 
a clear, well-defined superstition that he must not de- 
stroy anything he wrote. He was the instrument of the 
Muses but it was not his function to determine values. 
To make a book was an affliction. He never could de- 
cide happily or conclusively what to include and what 
to reject. To him his poems were ventures on an uncer- 
tain sea. "How," he once remarked, "were the sons of 
poverty and rhyme ever to know what to offer? The 
wren feeds on what the eagle overlooks." Making a 
poem, he would say with Burns, was like begetting a 
son; you can not know whether you have a wise man 



220 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

or a fool until you have given him to the world to try 
him. 

The exception to the foregoing is the emphatic dis- 
count he put on most of his Grub Street productions 
covering the first five years of the seventies. That they 
were crude went without saying, and in the front row 
of these he included that "perfect wrangle of bad gram- 
mar," his first poem to find its way into print, which 
appeared in the Poet's Column of the Greenfield Com- 
mercial. "Metrical bauble" though it was, on the day 
of its publication he read it over and over again till 
the lines actually sounded musical to him. "That con- 
tribution," said he, "looked larger to me than the big- 
gest sign I ever painted. Why, I was sure — sure, mind 
you — that it could be seen across the waters." Since 
he, in amateurish glee, read it with such fervor, per- 
haps the reader would like to see it : — 

POET'S COLUMN 

For the Commercial 

THE SAME OLD STORY TOLD AGAIN 

The same old story told again — 

The maiden droops her head. 

The rip'ning glow of her crimson cheek 

Is answering in her stead. 

The pleading tone of a trembling voice 

Is telling her the way 

He loved her when his heart was young 

In Youth's sunshiny day. 

The trembling tongue, the longing tone, 

Imploringly asking why 

They cannot be as happy now 

As in the days gone by? 

And two fond hearts, tumultuous 

With overflowing joy, 

Are dancing to the music 

Which that dear, provoking boy 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 221 

Is twanging on his bowstring, 

As, fluttering his wings, 

He sends his loved-charged arrows 

While merrily he sings : 

"Ho ! ho ! my dainty maiden, 

It surely cannot be 

You are thinking you are mistress 

Of your heart when it is me." 

And another gleaming arrow, 

Does the little god's behest 

And the dainty little maiden 

Falls upon her lover's breast. 

The same old story told again, 

And listened o'er and o'er, 

Will still be new, and pleasing, too, 

Till time shall be no more. 

Edyrn. 
Sept. 7, 1870. 

Longfellow, shuddering before the windows of the 
Post-Gazette building while its walls rumbled with the 
jar of ink-balls and presses, waiting for his "Battle of 
Lovell's Pond," was not a whit more agitated than was 
Riley before the door of the Commercial office. Al- 
though the latter had seen twenty-one summers, he was 
as young at heart as the boy of thirteen in Portland. 
The desire to write the lines had been stealing over his 
youthful innocence for some time. After they were 
written came the mental strain. "The first day," said 
a Grub Street chum, "he was absent from dinner; the 
second, when nobody was looking he took the lines to 
the editor." The state of Riley's mind as he stood by 
the Commercial office door with the manuscript, is best 
related in his own words : — * 

"A weird atmosphere hung over the office. Strange 
footsteps through the hall and sounds of muffled voices 
fell on my half -conscious hearing. No weighty prob- 



222 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

lems of finance rolled heavily along the empty corri- 
dors of thought. Down the vista of my dream the 
Democratic platform vanished like a ghost at daybreak. 
Something vague, shadowy and indefinable seemed to 
hang over me. As I tip-toed to the door and listened, 
I heard distinctly the words, 'The Editor.' What could 
they mean? 

" 'Walk in and tackle him,' whispered an invisible 
monitor. I slowly turned the knob. 'Listen/ said I, 
'did you not hear something shriek?' 

" 'Suppose you did/ returned my monitor. — 'Why do 
you tremble?' 

" 'Perhaps he's coming out.' 

u 'Let him come ; you can give it to him here.' 

"A chill rippled over me ; I could give it to him any- 
where, I thought, but he was liable to frown and kick. 
I was at the point, absent-mindedly, of knocking at the 
door when my monitor said, 'Go in without knocking; 
he's not coming out : go right in ; beard the lion in his 
den' — and I went in, told the editor how I had hesi- 
tated and then sank to the floor. Five minutes later 
I recovered and on leaving the office, cast one look back- 
ward. He was punching and crumpling my manuscript 
with a blue pencil as if it were a lizard or a spider," 

Just how much of the foregoing is the play of Riley's 
fancy the reader may determine. Learning his "poem" 
was to be printed, he got a proof as soon as it was set up 
but kept all a secret till the day of the paper's issue. 
The work of his pen in type for the first time — earth 
had no joy like that — never had had anything like it! 
Who "Edyrn" was, was not known for several days. 
When the secret leaked out, "his friends," said one of 
them, "rallied round him and filled his head with the 
usual supply of flattery and nonsense. His father's 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 223 

comment was not encouraging. 'Edyrn' did not borrow 
a dollar, buy extra copies and mail to distant friends. 
Borrowing was not his forte in those days." 

Riley's first experience with "poetry" antedated his 
"first poem in print" fifteen years. "It was while I was 
a small boy," said he, "that I wrote my first rhymes. 
They were the outcome of what seemed dire necessity 
to my childish mind. The children in Greenfield were 
in the habit of sending valentines back and forth. They 
were of the old-fashioned sort ; the pictures were cari- 
catures, the verses doggerel. They cost but a cent 
a piece but I was so small that pennies were not given 
me for valentines. I wanted to send them, all the same ; 
so with some cheap crayon I sketched pictures on scrap 
paper as nearly like the boughten pictures as I could, 
only I tried to make the faces look like those I meant to 
send them to. After I had colored my crude figures I 
remembered that my valentines had no mottoes. So I 
made up rhymes as I went along. It was childish stuff, 
but it met the approval of my mother from whom I 
inherited my inclination for drawing. She was so 
pleased she let me have my own way for a week." 
. Above his second pen name, "Jay Whit," such "drib- 
blings" as "Mockery," "Flames and Ashes," "A Bal- 
lad," and "Johnny," appeared in the Indianapolis 
Mirror in 1872. "The Poet's Wooing," and "Man's De- 
votion," (the former was rejected) were illustrated by 
himself, thus again exercising the gift inherited from 
his mother. Writing of the latter two in February to 
his brother John who was then living in Indianapolis 
he said: 

"Of late I am startlingly prolific in composing. I 
could dispose of my productions like brick — so much 
per thousand. 



224 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

And say, Dear brother, you will sign 'Jay Whit,' 
Providing the paper will publish it. 

And if they should refuse, let me down gently. I have 
written with a pencil to make it as plain as possible to 
you — don't let them see my manuscript — unless you 
should endeavor to publish it in an illustrated paper — : 
you may then submit my illustration to them. Yours 
obscurely." 

Of "A Ballad," a sea story, he wrote his brother in 
May as follows : 

"If you can't get this on the front page, don't put 
it in, for I consider it the best thing I have ever writ- 
ten and I want to see it occupy a front seat — or we'll 
let it stand till one can be procured. i 

"Try it for this week — And feel them a little on a 
prose sketch — for instance (do it this way) : 'He has 
written some sketches that I consider good — not tire- 
some and so forth — but racy — original — with now and 
then a little spice of poetry — humor — wit — and quite 
pathetic occasionally — and so forth' — -understand ? Try 
it and send me the result. 

"Use your best endeavors to send it to the editor this 
week. If published, I expect there will be some one 
from Greenfield (referring to his brother) who would 
like to hand his name down to posterity by having it 
said that he once brought me from the renovator's, a 
second-hand coat — when I was too poor to even thank 
him for his trouble. (Exit laughing.) " 

"Johnny," a story of three thousand words, was 
the first sketch to appear in print. The plot is so 
simple a child could remember it. The scene 
is a country town with its surplus of village 
gossip, barking dogs, and dinner bells. There 
is the meeting of a bachelor and a widow in 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 225 

her mourning weeds on an April evening, a fire at 
midnight and the rescue of the widow's boy from a 
burning roof by the bachelor — and then in swift suc- 
cession the courtship and the marriage. The story was 
"racy and original" as its author wrote when seeking to 
have it printed in the county paper, but "dull and tire- 
some" when he grew older and consigned it to the 
waste basket. 

In 1873, as we have seen, the Argonaut was away 
from Greenfield with the "Graphics." In the spring 
and summer of 1874, he sent "Private Theatricals," "At 
Last," "The Poet's Wooing," "My Jolly Friend's Se- 
cret," "Plain Sermons," "A Summer's Afternoon," and 
"That Little Dorg" to the Danbury News. All were 
accepted as the effusions of a "rising litterateur." They 
lacked the spontaneous felicity of after years but were 
evidence of merit nevertheless. News of their ac- 
ceptance came to him "like a shower to a fainting 
strawberry." Montgomery Bailey and his "Danbury 
News Man" were popular in Greenfield as elsewhere. 
The incessant flow of humor from his pen had quick- 
ened Riley's sense of drollery for some time, and the 
editor in turn caught gleams of funny things in "Jay 
Whit." Of course the contributions were free. It was 
honor enough to have them accepted. Here was some- 
thing new. Riley had crossed the Hudson. He had 
penetrated the Icy East: 

"What were his feelings as grave and alone, 
He sat in the silence, glaring in the grate 
That stewed and sighed on in an undertone 
As subtle — immovable as fate?" 

What were his feelings? Too numerous and unknow- 
able for consideration here. But one thing was settled 
— settled at that very early date. Hungry as he was 



/ / 



226 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

for eastern recognition, he would not be absorbed by it. 
"Whenever a writer west of the Alleghany Mountains," 
said he, "has risen to eminence, the East has absorbed 
him with greedy haste. By this process his genius 
loses the tang of its native region, the flavor of the soil 
from which he sprung, and the soil loses the talent it 
nurtured and on which it had a claim. ,, 

In February, 1874, "Farmer Whipple — Bachelor" 
was printed in the Greenfield News, and in December, 
"Tradin* Joe" appeared. Both poems were written 
without thought of publication. Their author tucked 
them away in his "reticule" for recitation in school- 
houses and on his country excursions. "Farmer Whip- 
ple" was one of the popular numbers recited from the 
steps of the Wizard Oil wagon, 

"In those days," said Riley, "I had a 'dramatic' 
friend who was on the rocks as often as I was. When I 
was begging for bread the idea invariably struck him 
that I could in some way, unknown to fortune, make 
ends meet, and promote his schemes however gigantic 
or unattainable they were." A letter from the friend 
came from Pendleton in February, 1874. "I have a 
desire," he wrote, "to go into partnership with you. 
An idea has just struck me. Perhaps we could buy out 
the editor who publishes the paper here. I think we 
could make money out of it. You are a good writer, 
and would then have something to do. We could save 
our money and then go into a dramatic company to- 
gether. I mean engage one of our own. If you are 
willing to be steady and work and save and try, come 
over and see me and find out if the editor will sell and 
at what price. The reason I write the above is that I 
learn that you now have nothing to do" (and so forth) . 
The letter set "Jay Whit" considering seriously the 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 227 

newspaper field, as did also a postal card from his 
Graphic Chum referring to a prospect of employment 
on the Kokomo Republican, which (in the chum's 
opinion) the Hoosier Humorist could make a better 
paper than the Banbury News. Late in the year he 
applied for work at the office of the Greenfield News. 
The editor was not able to pay for work. "Sorely as I 
need it," said the applicant, "it is not money I want but 
experience." Next week the News appeared with : 

W. T. Walker, Editor 

J. W. Riley, Associate Editor. 

"We now have in our office," (so wrote the Associate 
Editor, though the News' readers imputed the pleas- 
antry to the Editor) — "a red-headed devil who loses his 
hair occasionally by spontaneous combustion. He 
wears a tiny hat and never considers himself in full 
dress without a Babcock fire extinguisher on his back. 
In times past he has contributed to the News under 
the nom de plume of 'Jay Whit/ Now as local editor 
he will doubtless infuse into its columns the spell of his 
sobriquet without the h. To say that this new member 
of our staff will make the local columns hum would be 
placing it mild. Many of his friends think he has 
struck his proper gait and will develop into a great 
editor." 

It was the Associate Editor's province to collect 
items from townspeople and countrymen and "em- 
bellish them for publication." Then it was that the 
"apprentice-poet of the town, rising to impassioned 
heights" began 

"To lighten all the empty, aching miles 
Around with brighter fancies, hopes and smiles." 



/ 1 



228 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

He threw in with the Hominy Ridge items local adver- 
tising rhymes such as: 

"Carpets coarse and carpets fine, 
Rich in color and design, 
Sold at bargains half divine" — 
(with name of business firm attached.) 

"Has anybody heard of a cure for window panes?" he 
asked. An old lady sent full instructions for a liver 
pad. He did not know about that, "but a half section 
of number one strawberry shortcake makes a stomach 
pad that has few equals and no superior." 

To his little comrade in the street : "Now the small 
boy busies himself collecting pennies for the circus," 
ran a local, "but he will probably crawl under the can- 
vas as heretofore. May he have his usual good luck." 

Nor did the local editor neglect his rural neighbors : 

"The farmer works his hired hand 
From four o'clock in the morning light 
Till eight or nine o'clock at night, 
And then finds fault with his appetite." 

After this he would go after them for delinquent sub- 
scriptions : "The last twenty-five sticks of an editor's 
woodpile vanish before his eyes like the morning dew." 
When items were scarce, in corn-planting time, for in- 
stance, he "would go out and look over the Poor Farm 
and come back with a basketful of abuse, neglect and 
so on." 

It goes without saying that the Associate Editor sup- 

• plied the News liberally with effusions of a literary 

character. There were such fledglings in verse as 

"Leloine ,, (a faint imitation of Poe), "An Autumn 

Leaf," and "The Ancient Printerman." The paper 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 229 

almost staggered under the weight of "Babe Mc- 
Dowell," the story of a college student falling in love 
with a beautiful girl who was training for the stage. 
"My first story to require serial publication," remarked 
Riley. "Length was its sole merit." 

In the spring of 1875 he made another bid for east- 
ern recognition. Purchasing a sample copy of Hearth 
and Home at a news-stand, he concluded to try his luck 
with the doughty "Ik Marvel," who had charmed him 
with Reveries of a Bachelor. He sent him "A 
Destiny," which twenty years later was given the title 
"The Dreamer" in A Child-World — "the poem about a 
long-haired young man," as Riley expressed it, "who 
associated much with himself, took to solitude, and 
walked alone in the woods." It was published April 
tenth with three quaint illustrations; the first, the 
strange young man without companions, his hat and 
book on the ground in the shade of a majestic tree, 
the dreamer 

"Lying limp, with upturned gaze, 
Idly dreaming away his days" : 

the second and third, the farmer at the pasture bars, 
who saw the fragment of legal cap paper with the sum- 
mer rhyme thereon, which he chased to the thicket of 
trees, and there discovered that its author was not a 
poet but the inventor of a churn. 

When Riley received the issue of Hearth and Home 
containing his poem and a letter commending his verse, 
together with a draft for eight dollars, he "proceeded" 
(to quote his own words) "to build a full-sized air cas- 
tle. At last he had struck the trail to fortune. He walked 
in the clouds" — and likewise walked down to the Green- 



230 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

field Banking Company to cash the draft — the first he 
had ever received for a poem. He was rich — rich as 
the parson with forty pounds a year. Louisa May Al- 
cott did not have fairer visions of fortune when she sold 
her first story to the newspaper for five dollars. Sev- 
eral days it was humorously whispered round town that 
"Jay Whit," after waiting* so long and so patiently, 
would now be able "to liquidate his debts." Alas, for 
the wide gulf between them and the size of the draft. 
"He paid no debts," said a Greenfield chum ; "it was a 
red letter day; we stood on our heads for joy and lived 
like nabobs while the money lasted." But the game was 
yet by no means in his own hands. Just when the Asso- 
ciate Editor was making a name for himself and colors 
were flying, the News was sold, its name changed to 
Republican and his dreams shattered. The paper went 
from bad to worse and soon joined the great majority. 
"I strangled the little thing," said Riley. "Then 
I continued to grind out poetry for 'literary depart- 
ments/ I more than supplied the foreign demand 
with plenty left over for home use. When I sent an 
editor a prose sketch he advised me to try poetry. I 
did so and scribbled away at the rate of 2 :40 a ream. 
Then he advised me to try prose again. This was too 
much. Pursuing the tenor of my own way, I had my 
hair cut, painted a sign or two and played the guitar." 
Throughout his Grub Street experience he had always 
a meager income from his trade. When other ventures 
failed he could paint a sign. To this end he vibrated 
between Greenfield and Anderson. 

While he was thus lingering along in doubt, he was 
handed the following circular from the Western Union 
Telegraph Company, then located in the old Blackford 
Block, corner Washington and Meridian, Indianapolis : 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 231 

Dear Sir: 

Will you please keep me advised promptly by 
telegraph, of all important news transpiring in your 
vicinity, such as homicides, suicides, accidents, and 
matters of moment that may be exciting the public 
attention. I will pay at the rate of fifty cents a special, 
settlement to be made at the end of each month. Make 
the special short as possible. By doing this you will 
greatly oblige 

Yours truly, 

R. T. Howard, 
Manager of Specials. 

"I proceeded," said Riley, "to build another air castle. 
I recalled a valuable list of fires, suicides and accidents 
in the past. Remittance for press telegrams would buy 
shoes and bread. But, strange to relate, not a lax, 
shabby, villainous thing happened the whole summer. 
Monotony was a drug on the market. They had lynched 
the negro the week before the circular came. There 
were weeks of waiting. I grew ill. The while I tried 
to study law — and if wading through that deplorable 
stuff (he was quoting from Bleak House), if charging 
down the middle and up again, if going through that 
country dance of costs and fees and corruption will not 
make a man sick, nothing else will. The humdrum 
days continuing, I proceeded to make a little excite- 
ment of my own. A traveling showman passing by, 
I climbed on the wagon and shed the town." 

Returning from that "rather lengthy sojourn in 
the Buckeye State" (with the Wizard Oil Company), 
he immediately ascended the stairs to the old room in 
the Dunbar House, which not only sheltered the Grub 
Street tenant, but had the honor of being the first 
"literary den" in the town. Up there in room 13 (his 
superstition about the number was not yet a trouble- 



232 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

some factor) , up there he spun political jingles for the 
Hayes and Wheeler campaign ; up there he had written 
"The Dreamer," and one cold January night while his 
room-mate sighed over the waste of coal oil he rose 
from his bed and saved some fragments which he tied 
together the next day for "My Fiddle." Up there he 
was wont to "switch the bow and lean back and laugh 
and wink at every rainy day" ; up there 

"They tell me, when he used to plink 
And plonk and plunk and play, 
His music seemed to have the kink 
Of driving cares away." 

While occupying "old 13" he sent a "bulky envelope," 
a second sample of his "fancy work," to Hearth and 
Home. The venture was disastrous. "By the time 
my effusions reached them," said Riley, "the hand of 
Fate had closed the institution like a telescope." The 
verse came back but the sting was taken away some- 
what by the letter from Donald G. Mitchell: 

THE GRAPHIC COMPANY 

The Daily Graphic Hearth and Home 

$12 Per Year $2.50 Per Year 

New York, February 18, 1876. 
Mr. J. W. Riley, 
Dear Sir: 

The sudden decision of the Graphic Managers to 
discontinue the publication of Hearth and Home forth- 
with, compels the return of the accompanying very 
graceful poem, which I should otherwise publish with 
pleasure. 

Trusting that you may not be discouraged from 
further exercise of your literary talent through a 
more fortunate medium, I remain, 
Yours respectfully, 

the Ex Editor of "H. & H." 



SCRIBBLING IN GRUB STREET 233 

The "very graceful poem" was "A Country Path- 
way," which he had written on the banks of Lick 
Creek in Madison County, where he was visiting 
friends for a week at an old-fashioned homestead. 
One day, after whiling a few hours with wheat 
thrashers three miles from the homestead, he returned 
across the fields. At one point he followed a path 
overhung with willow boughs. "It was a dar- 
ling pathway," he said, recalling the afternoon 
walk; "I yearned for something to dispel the mist 
from my future. What would I not give to know 
that my path of life would lead on through scenes 
of enchantments and up to the door of a smiling 
world as my country pathway led me through the 
valley, and across the orchard to the door of smil- 
ing friends." 

To the "disastrous venture" in Hearth and Home, 
lovers of Riley verse are largely indebted for "The 
Shower." There was in connection therewith a 
touch of rustic beauty and purity in a "British Book" 
which he recalled with lively pleasure. "A rainbow 
in the sky, the glittering of the rain upon the leaves ; 
the dripping poultry under the hedge; the reflection 
of the cattle on the road, and the girl with her gown 
over her shoulders," — a picture which placed James 
Burnet in the first rank as a pastoral painter; and it 
is equally true that "The Shower" and after it "The 
Sudden Shower" placed Riley in the front rank of 
lyric poets. 

On receiving the Hearth and Home letter, Riley 
was more interested in "Ik Marvel" than ever. One 
day he ran across "A Picture of Rain." "Will any- 
one," asked Mitchell, "give us on canvas, a good, 
rattling, saucy shower? There is room in it for a 



234 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

rare handling of the brush : — the vague, indistinguish- 
able line of the hills, — the gray lines, slanted by 
the wind and trending eagerly downward, — the swift 
petulant dash into the little pools, making fairy bub- 
bles that break as soon as they form, — the land smok- 
ing with excess of moisture, — and the pelted leaves 
all wincing and shining and adrip." 

"Why don't you try it?" asked his Graphic Chum. 

"You might as well ask the clouds to rain," an- 
swered Riley. However the query did set him think- 
ing and in due time 

"The cloud above put on its blackest frown, 
And then, as with a vengeful cry of pain, 
The lightning snatched it, ripped and flung it down 
In ravelled shreds of rain: 

"While he, transfigured by some wondrous art, 
Bowed with the thirsty lilies to the sod, 
His empty soul brimmed over, and his heart 
Drenched with the love of God." 



CHAPTER XI 

THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 

DO YOU know Whitcomb Riley?" 
"Whit Riley? — oh, yes, I know him and his 
folks well. People round these parts don't 
think much of him. He is sort o' flighty and no good." 
Such was the answer a newspaper correspondent re- 
ceived from an old lady, a resident of Greenfield, who 
like some of her neighbors had less faith in Riley's 
future than those who looked on from a distance. She 
had seen many human riddles in the Carolinas where 
she once lived, but none, she was quite certain, so mys- 
terious as "that young Riley," none who played at cross 
purposes so abstrusely. "Just when he seems to be 
getting a start at sign-painting or the law," said 
another neighbor, "he flies the track and over the hills 
he goes." While collecting items for the Greenfield 
News, he would be unaccountably seized with a desire 
to write verse, and so he would hie away "to Fortville 
or down to Fountaintown, where," he said, "I 
rented a dingy upstairs room for ten cents a week, 
and locked the door." Thus he avoided the look of idle 
curiosity that often confronted him around the Green- 
field post-office. Too often for his comfort "the won- 
dering eyes of the curious rabble" were fastened on 
box 15, his letter box, with its pamphlets, papers, and 
magazines, and the numerous letters with mysterious 
postmarks, ever crowding into it. To old-timers his 
withdrawal from society was past comprehension. 
235 



236 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Usually, they observed, folks were happy when they 
were the center of attraction. Not so with Riley. 
During those intervals of absence from home (to 
borrow the "corduroy" lines) : 

"He lingered and delayed, 
And kept his friends away ; 
Shut himself within his room and stayed 
A- writing there from day to day ; 
He kept a-getting stranger still, 
And thinner all the time, 
You know, as any fellow will, 
On nothing else but rhyme." 

"And when after a two weeks' vigil he returned," 
said one of his comrades, "he was still the pale, sad- 
eyed subject of bewilderment, the problem Fate alone 
could decipher. He had dreams that he himself but 
half understood and of course none of his friends 
understood." He was the man he describes in "Fame," 
who drew 

"A gloom about him like a cloak, 
And wandered aimlessly. The few 
Who spoke of him at all, but spoke 
Disparagingly of a mind 
The Fates had faultily designed: 
Too indolent for modern times — 
Too fanciful and full of whims — 
For, talking to himself in rhymes, 
And scrawling never-heard-of hymns, 
The idle life to which he clung 
Was worthless as the songs he sung!" 

The "strange young man" was not always melan- 
choly. There were days, sometimes weeks, when he 
was a perfect battery of merriment. He was a droll, 
ridiculous genius, the gifted, good-for-nothing Bob 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 237 

he portrays in the "Gilded Roll" — laughing always at 
everything. 

"How sad he seemed in his wild delight, 
And how tickled indeed when he wept outright ; 
What a comical man when he writhed in pain, 
And how grieved he was to be glad again." 

On rare occasions when he and his companions were 
hilarious in the old-time charades, he 

"Went round in a coat of pale pink-blue, 
And a snow-white vest of crimson hue, 
And trousers purple, and gaiters gray — 
All cut, as the French or Dutch would say, 
La — macht nichts aus, oder — decollete" 

Friends declared that he was in almost all respects 
the Mr. Clickwad of the "Respectfully Declined Papers 
of the Buzz Club," a fictitious series of opinions, ghastly 
dreams, impromptu rhymes and literary frivolities, 
that he wrote a few years later for the Indianap- 
olis Saturday Herald. Often Mr. Clickwad seemed 
totally oblivious of his surroundings. He would stare 
blankly at the ragged gas-jet, drumming his pencil 
against his teeth. Then he would transfer his attention 
to a mangy manuscript, erase a word here and there, 
and drop into "a comatose condition of mentality" that, 
to lively companions, was aggravating in the extreme. 
Mr. Clickwad was calmly accepted as a bundle of con- 
tradictions. His faculty for pleasing and horrifying in 
the same breath was simply marvelous, the informali- 
ties of his fancy "being beyond cavil the most diabolic 
and delightful on record." 

"Notwithstanding his eccentricities," remarked a 
shrewd Greenfield attorney, "Riley does know the Great 
Nine. How he came to know them baffles inquiry, but 
he certainly does enjoy the honor of their friendship." 



J 



238 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

With what excess of feeling is shown in a brief 
message to Lee 0. Harris. He had "a few moments," 
he said, "to lavish in a dissipation of thought." Signing 
himself "Troubled Tom," he sends his Schoolmaster 
a postal card to say, "I have been thinking of you all 
day and wondering whether the Muse is on good terms 
with you this misty weather. I have had a 'perfect 
night-mare of fine frenzy." Another time he tried to 
express his frenzy in verse : 

"0 he was a poet weird and sad, 
And life and love betimes went mad; 
He sang such songs as flame and flare 
Over the wide world everywhere. 
Famous was he for his wan wild eyes, 
And his woeful mien and his heaving sighs." 

Though wild and eccentric, though his lips were pale 
beneath the lamplight, 

"He sang and the lark was hushed and mute, 
And the dry-goods clerk forgot his flute ; 
And the night operator at the telegraph stand 
Smothered his harp in his trembling hand ; 
The dull and languid as they read his song, 
Sighed all day and the whole night long 
For a love like his and the passion warm 
As the pulsing heart of the thunder-storm." 

At another time, while visiting his Schoolmaster, 
"Troubled Tom" easily convinced him that genius is a 
form of insanity, particularly poetic genius. Both 
agreed that there was eminent authority for the con- 
clusion. Shakespeare had said that the lunatic, the 
lover, and the poet were of imagination all compact. 
The Schoolmaster went on to explain that men of 
genius in all ages were men of strong passions. Riley 
added that they were necessarily eccentric, and could 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 239 

not by dint of any virtue travel the conventional road. 
Men of average talent touched life on a few sides only. 
The creative spirit was not in them. Hence they re- 
garded with suspicion a man of genius who touched life 
on many sides. Riley had noted in a "British Book" 
that men dull in comprehending the eccentricities of a 
great painter, set down what surpassed their own 
understanding to the account of the painter's stupidity. 
The Schoolmaster was of the persuasion that genius 
is little in little things. "The mistake the people 
make," he said, "is to attribute littleness to genius in 
all things." Riley complained that the people lacked 
impartiality of vision. Everybody in his own degree, 
was drugged with his own frenzy. Why deny the 
luxury to the poet? It was a matter of gradation. The 
poet's frenzy was higher on the scale. 

Lunatic, wise man, or poet, "Troubled Tom" had his 
defenders. By no means were "everything and every- 
body against him," as he once moaned when in a 
melancholy mood. Young people were for him and 
occasionally his elders. His near neighbor, Judge Good- 
ing, defended him as brave Sam Johnson vindicated 
Sheridan and substantially in the same language: 
"There is to be sure something in the fellow," said the 
Judge, "to reprehend and something to laugh at ; *but 
Sir, he is not a foolish man. No, Sir ; divide mankind 
into wise and foolish, and he stands considerably with- 
in the ranks of the wise." 

When faultfinders were numerous there was one 
home where Riley never failed to find encourage- 
ment. Mother Millikan, the first to forecast his liter- 
ary future, had no misgivings. From that day in his 
teens he crossed the threshold to find the Sketch Book 
on her center table, her home had been a refuge from 



240 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

dejection. Her daughter, Nellie Millikan, was uni- 
formly friendly and helpful. According to the aphor- 
ism, "those who befriend genius when it is struggling 
for distinction, befriend the world." Such credit be- 
longs to the Millikans. Though the daughter married 
and moved to another state, her faith and interest in 
Riley never diminished. Her husband, George Cooley, 
was equally loyal. "You have a talent," he wrote from 
his new home in Illinois, "that is sure to meet with just 
reward. Go on, my boy. I only wish it were in my 
power to point you to a shorter and easier road to fame 
than that you have been compelled to travel. My word 
for it, the time will come when it will not be Whit 
Riley but James W. Riley, Esquire, one of America's 
famous poets." 

"Dear James," Mrs. Cooley wrote in the same letter, 
"you have no one left in Greenfield who takes the same 
interest in you that I did or who is so proud of you 
when people write me that you 'are going to the dogs/ 
How will they feel when the time comes that all who 
know you will be so proud to take you by the hand? 
The world is before you. You are standing well up on 
the ladder. Grip it with a firm hand, be determined to 
reach the top. You are young, almost a boy. Take 
good care of your health. Do not let the late hours 
that bring only an aching head the next day, steal away 
your youthful strength and rob you of your brightest 
thoughts. Keep them to give to the world. God bless 
you." 

As Riley grew in years and experience he had a great 
*deal to say about the well-meant intentions of friends 
that were more harmful than helpful. In rhyme he 
expressed himself this way: 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 241 

"Neglected genius — truth be said — 
As wild and quick as tinder, 
The more you seek to help ahead 
The more you seem to hinder." 

The encouragement Nellie Millikan gave him disproved 
the allegation. She did not chronicle absurdities. She 
did not forget what was noble and excellent in a man. 
She saw that "God twists and wrenches our evil to our 
good." She saw merit in Riley's irregular, impassioned 
force. Others urged him to paint signs on country 
barns. She urged him to stick to his lead pencil. The 
fidelity of her friendship has seldom been equaled. She 
admonished her "Troubled Tom" to trust to his heart 
and to what the world calls illusions. 

His reply to a letter from her was characteristic of 
him at that time. As usual he indulged in idle rhymes. 

"You want a letter 
And I've not a line of prose — 
Wouldn't 'jingle' answer better? 
I have plenty, Gracious knows ! 
For my mind is running riot 
With the music of the Muse." 

There was a dearth of glad hearts and no sweet voice 
to quiet "the restless pulse of care." The "old crowd" 
was widely scattered. The ties of friendship were 
tattered and raveled at the ends, and the social circle 
was dimmer 

"Than a rainy afternoon, 
And sheds a thinner glimmer 
Than the ring around the moon." 

The past was like a story to which he had listened in a 
dream, he went on in a metrical moan. It was vanish- 
ing in the glory of the early morning. Glancing at his 
shadow he felt the loss of strength while the Day of 



242 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Life was advancing. The flight of time gave him 
scarcely a moment "to trip it with a rhyme." Never- 
theless he really did believe his "fame was growing 
stronger"; 

"And though he fell below it, 
He might know as much of mirth, 
To live and die a poet 
Of unacknowledged worth ; 
For Fame is but a vagrant, 
Though a loyal one and brave, 
And her laurels ne'er so fragrant 
As when scattered o'er the grave." 

A friend once remarked that "Riley is one of 
those men who appear to be born what they are by 
some accident of nature." Riley was different. To 
begin with, he refused to be born "according to 
the tradition of the register books." Following a 
youthful fancy, he made a little memoir of himself and 
changed the year of his birth from 1849 to 1853, adopt- 
ing the whim of Henry Fuseli, the eccentric painter, 
who changed his birth year from 1741 to 1745. At 
first a mere freak, it became in later years a matter of 
serious consideration when he grew sensitive on the 
question of his age. The freak was a source of confu- 
sion to his friends. They wrote for the facts: 

"Mr. James W. Riley, the man of great mirth, 
Give us the day and the date of your birth ; 
We are anxious to know when you came to this earth, 
Of the heavenly planets and the zodiac's girth." 

He dodged the planets, humored his whim and returned 
an evasive answer. 

He was different. When a boy he refused to be put 
through the straight jacket system of education. When- 
ever that system gave scope to his individuality 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 243 

— all too seldom he thought for his advancement — he 
was its willing votary. But when it addressed him 
exactly in the same manner and with the same stand- 
ards it addressed other boys, his heart organized an 
insurrection. In the Shoe-Shop he was warned of the 
danger of reducing education to "the careless, fitful 
spirit of a gamester who felt that he was a part of a 
great gaming system." He once remarked of a little 
flock of visitors, "I can not endure them ; they are all 
alike — all of one order — one habit of thought. I feel 
like a wildcat among them." "I can remember," he said 
when grown to maturity, "when <I, through some 
strange hallucination that victimized me for a season, 
had a desire to be just like everybody else. I was 
afraid somebody would think I was peculiar. I lived 
down in a little country village and was ashamed to let 
folks know I lived there. I did not fool anybody. 
Everybody knew that I was from Greenfield. If I were 
a countryman and had lived on an eighty-acre farm all 
my life and had never been off it, I would brag about 
that farm. I would swear it was the most beautiful 
piece of property under the light of heaven. If men 
doubted it I would tell them to live a lifetime on just 
such a farm and then they would know." 

He was different. At a "skating bee" on the Missis- 
sinewa River, while the tide of glee slid merrily on, he 
sat on the bank, all alone. Skaters came to him with 
their zestful song: 

"0 come with us and we will go 
And try the winter's cold, sir ; 
Nor fear the ice, nor fear the snow, 
For we are tough and bold, sir." 

In vain. He preferred the company of his own 
thoughts. "Think of it," Bill Nye remarked at a 



244 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

later period, "there he was, just a sliver in the great 
wood-pile of creation, yet fancying he heard music 
from the breakers far away on the restless, rising sea 
of ambition." 

He was different — unfit for the confusion of the 
world yet having an intimate knowledge of it. He 
knew things by intuition. "Speaking of intuitions," he 
said in an interview of his later years, giving a por- 
trait of himself, "I knew a fellow back in my native 
town. His name — well, he had a law office with a bay- 
window on the second floor of a building on Main 
Street. He was a quiet chap ; he used to have intuitions 
and premonitions and all that sort of thing; he had 
quite a reputation for them. Time and again when he 
saw a stranger crossing the street, he would tell exactly 
to what building and to what office he was going, — and 
his forecast was usually correct. 

"Well, he was sitting in his window one day medi- 
tating, like Mark Twain's frog, when he noticed a crowd 
of loafers gathering in front of a building across the 
way. They began to gaze dreamily up at a man on a 
stepladder, who, with his back to them, was swinging 
up a shop sign. They all stood there, quiet and silent, 
with their hands behind their backs when he remarked 
to the men in his office that he could cause a stir among 
the dreamers, yet he would not say anything or do 
anything other than go over among them for a moment. 
Then he put himself under his hat, stuffed his hands in 
his pockets, went down-stairs, crossed the street and 
. lazily slipped in among the gazers. No one moved, no 
one noticed him; every one seemed to be in a trance. 
After a minute he began softly to whistle an old famil- 
iar hymn, 'Shall We Gather at the River.' He stopped 
at the end of the second line. A man behind him un- 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 245 

consciously took up the tune and carried it along and 
then another caught on, and another, and soon the 
whole crowd was whistling softly or half humming the 
melody — the inoculator in the meantime returning to 
his law office. By and by the man with the sign started 
to join in unconsciously, but for some reason could not 
quite catch the thread of the tune. That took his mind 
off his work, and since his work at that moment con- 
sisted in balancing the heavy sign on one nail and him- 
self on one foot, the result was speedy demoralization. 
The sign tumbled down, he narrowly escaped death, 
besides damaging the eye of a spectator." 

Here, in a trivial incident of the street, is a glimpse 
of Riley's power over the hearts of men. "How did you 
do that, James?" asked his associates in the office. 
James did not know. It was a mystery, just as years 
afterward his power over an audience was a mystery. 
Nevertheless "the spells of persuasion, the keys of 
power" were put into his hands. He was so 

"Self-centered, that when he launched the magic word, 
It shook or captivated all who heard." 

"Robert Collyer," said an Indiana clergyman, "can 
find abundance of material in Greenfield for his lecture 
on 'Blunders of Genius/ " The remark was occasioned 
by Riley's declining to quit his "literary den" to attend 
a revival. He was different. He stood alone and thus 
provoked a sharp criticism from the evangelist, but he 
fared no better and no worse, it seems, than young Pro- 
fessor Longfellow, whose failure to attend a "pro- 
tracted meeting" met with similar disapproval. "I 
struck my critic," said Riley, "in the small of the back 
with a large chunk of silence. I had my pulpit and 
Brother Doe had his." 



246 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

It may be said here parenthetically, that quite early 
in his career Riley reached the conclusion that a man's 
greatness did not consist in believing a thing because 
it was popular. Of ttimes, as he saw it, it was his duty 
to stand for a thing when "all the cry of voices was on 
the other side." Soon after he reached his majority, 
he found a paragraph in Hearth and Home, an editorial 
note by Ik Marvel, which served him as a standard of 
living almost two score and ten years. "A man's true 
greatness," wrote Marvel, "lies in the consciousness 
of an honest purpose through life, founded on a just 
estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent 
self-examination, and a steady obedience to the rule 
which he knows to be right, without troubling himself 
about what others may think or say, or whether they 
do or do not do that which he thinks and says and 
does." 

"Troubled Tom" was such a strange young man. The 
more abstruse his lines, the more certainly he charac- 
terized himself: 

"He would chant of the golden wheat 
And then trill a biscuit-song as sweet 

As poets ever know. 
Then write a rhyme on theme sublime, 
And then twirl his pen as of yore 
And write a lay in his wildest way 
Of a rival grocery store." 

He unraveled wild and wanton fantasies from most 
improbable sources. "They were designed," he wrote, 

"By cunning of the spider brain — 
A tangle-work of tissue, wrought 
And woven, in an hour of pain, 
To trap the giddy flies of thought." 

The image of himself doing strange things in uncom- 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 247 

inon places was startling. Sometimes he was a 
truant schoolboy with a paper kite in the sky, "unwind- 
ing syllables of gossamer in glimmering threads of 
speech, and leaving at their ends shadowy thoughts 
that lost themselves in the fleecy clouds." Sometimes 
he was a cast-away "unlocking captive lays from the 
dungeon of his dismal heart that 

Would make the world turn wonderingly around, 
And slake its thirsty ear with harmony." 

Sometimes he was a desolate dwarf on the coast of a 
flying island, 

"Where only remorse in pent agony lives 
To dread the advice that his grandmother gives. 77 

Such a strange young man. He wanted to idle away 
weeks and write in some obscure hotel room, or in the 
shade of the Brandy wine elms, but such a boon the 
Fates denied him. "It was not like Hamlet," he said, 
"just a debate in my mind what to do. I literally had 
to take up arms against a sea of troubles. I had to 
suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." 
The arrows were often nothing more than a confusion 
of ideas concerning the properties, but the confusion 
was an affliction to him, and it turned out — a plague for 
life. His clothes were not cut in the latest style. 
Women thought he should be at their command. 
He should while away the rosy hours in amuse- 
ment. He should talk sentiment. Not at all, 
thought he. So he set about doing unaccountable 
things. He discounted the moon; he forgot to play; 
he worked at night and slept in the morning. Un- 
willing to countenance his infringements of custom, 
his companions soon gave him up as an incorrigible. 



248 JAMES WHITCOMB EILEY 

To add to his discomfort, he lost control of his temper, 
when some defiance of his wishes seemed to justify 
anger, and frequently (as he discovered on reflection) 
when there was no possible justification. "The extra 
lemon," said his friend, Myron Reed, "that had been 
squeezed into the nectar of his disposition damaged 
its flavor." 

He would pick up slips of paper in stores or offices 
to keep in his pocket for lead pencil memoranda. He 
made notes while other men worked and thus was fre- 
quently pointed out as a lounger. When the days were 
long he sought sequestered places in the thickets and 
fallen tree-tops, and he once remained hidden away in 
the woods in spite of the on-coming rain. 

"In those rare odd times, in his better moods 
Some rustic verses to him were born, 
That would live, perchance, in their native woods, 
As long as the crows that pull the corn." 

As the days went by, a lowering shroud of dreams en- 
folded him. There were plaints instead of rejoicing, 
and "one dismal evening," (he wrote in the gloom) 
"when the grimy hand of dusk was wiping out the day 
with spongy clouds, he let the fire die out in his room 
and refused to light the lamp, declaring that the bur- 
den was heavier than he could bear." What, he won- 
dered, was to keep his heart warm when friends de- 
serted him, when birds declined to sing, when difficulty 
seemed a mountain and success a foothill, when he 
sat in silence and gazed at the sky through the window 
"like one who hears it rain"? 

"Many men," he remarked half-seriously a decade 
after his dismal experience, "live in a community for 
years and years, carefully concealing the latent poetry 
in their hearts, and pass for reputable citizens ; but it 




The Sign on the Country Barn 
Painted by Riley in 1873 




New York Store Sign at Anderson 



The winds came, and the rain fell; 

The gusty panic blew — 
It mattered not — the L. M. Trees 

But strong and stronger grew 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 249 

was my fate by an unfortunate current of events very 
early in my career to be betrayed and branded as a 
poet." 

In that period of heart-heaviness lie was seeking 
a friendship that would deeply share his joys and sor- 
rows. He would compass the miracle of true affection. 
He had a surplus of professional friends whose oblique 
remonstrations "were deeper injuries than the down- 
right blows of an enemy." Where was the man who 
would lay down his life, if it be necessary, for his 
friend? The heroic example of Damon and Pythias 
was largely fiction. It should be truth, he thought, the 
common behavior of mankind. He was seeking the 
Thousandth Man — 

"The Thousandth Man will stand your friend 
With the whole round world ag'in you." 

You can show Mm your feelings. He will bide the 
shame of mockery and laughter. He will stick closer 
to you than a brother. Riley's hunger for friendship 
was the same unsatisfied longing he once attributed to 
the heart of a woman: 

"Where art thou, Love, still lost to me 
In unknown deeps of destiny? 
Thou man of men the fates design 
For me ! I reach my hands for thine 
Across the darkness, and I moan 
My love out all alone — alone. 

"But yesterday one blithe of tongue, 
An heir of fortune, fair and young, 
Walked with me down the gleaming sands, 
And of a sudden caught my hands 
And held them, saying 'All mine own !' 
And yet alone — alone — I walked alone." 



250 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

He was not only a strange young man but he 
was a strange middle-aged man and a strange old 
man (if it may be said he grew old) . There was an- 
other Riley back of the visible one which nobody ever 
saw; associates saw the smiling face or the "iron 
mask," but no one ever saw "the light behind the brow." 
"Away inside of the internal man," said he, "is another 
man and that man is so superior to the inferior one in 
front of him that he shades his eyes with his arm to 
hide the blush and shame. The altitude of the superior 
man is so great that the inferior can not reach high 
enough to touch him." 

To Riley's way of thinking, friendship was as inex- 
plicable as poetry. Efforts to explain it were futile. 
From Cicero to Emerson it was largely a matter of 
speculation. Who could write the history of love? — 
and friendship without love was as barren as the coast 
of Enderby Land. A passage attributed to Gail Ham- 
ilton expressed his view with accuracy sufficient for 
quotation. "There is no such thing," says she, "as 
knowing a man intimately. Every soul is, for the 
greater part of its mortal life, isolated from every 
other. Whether it dwells in the Garden of Eden or the 
Desert of Sahara, it dwells alone. Not only do we 
jostle against the street-crowd unknowing and un- 
known, but we go out and come in, we lie down and rise 
up, with Strangers. Jupiter and Neptune sweep the 
heavens not more unfamiliar to us than the worlds that 
circle our hearthstone. Day after day, and year after 
year, a person moves by our side; he sits at the same 
table ; he reads the same books ; he kneels in the same 
church. We speak to him ; his soul comes out into the 
vestibule to answer us, and returns— and the gates are 



THE STRANGE YOUNG MAN 251 

shut; therein we can not enter. We were discussing 
the state of the country ; but when we ceased, he opened 
a postern gate, went down a bank, and launched on a 
sea over whose waters we have no boat to sail, no star 
to guide." 



CHAPTER XII 

IN THE DARK 

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, the son of Harvard 
and intellectual Cambridge and Boston, could say 
with royal grace that no man is born into the 
world whose work is not born with him; that 
there is always work and tools to work withal, 
for those who will. But with Whitcomb Riley 
it was different. His work was born with him, 
but the tools were not always in sight, and when seen 
were often unavailable. Like Robert Burns he had 
"materials to discover ; the metal he worked in lay hid 
in a wilderness," where few if any before him "guessed 
its existence. He found himself in deep obscurity, 
without instruction, without model." Until his twenty- 
seventh year he was "a man wandering in the dark," 
waging a continual war with Fortune, and groping his 
way by the aid of a wandering rather than a fixed 
star. His genius was little more than "the capacity for 
receiving discipline." 

It always distressed him that vast numbers of people 
were unhappy in their occupations. He deplored the 
vain endeavor of men and women to be what nature 
never intended, "groping, floundering," he once crudely 
expressed it, "going round and round and round, never 
getting any sand on the track." 

He knew of no reason why men should not "sing at 
their work as merrily as a flock of robins in a cherry 
tree at sunrise." He was persuaded that each man has 
252 



IN THE DARK 253 

an unquestionable right to an unquestionable place, "an 
aptitude born with him to do easily some feat impos- 
sible to any other. Blessed is the right man in the 
right place." Do but the tenth part of what you can do, 
said the old "British Book," and fame and fortune will 
be the result. 

"The camel's hump is an ugly hump, 
Which well you may see at the Zoo ; 
But uglier yet is the hump we get 
From having too little to do" — 

not having the right thing to do, added Riley so em- 
phatically that Kipling most likely would have gladly 
made the change. 

While riding one day in the "Buckeye" with the 
"Standard Remedy" vender, Riley came to a blacksmith 
shop, with a smoky sign above the door : Come In And 
See Me Work. What he found, on entering the shop, 
was truly a revelation — a man unspeakably happy be- 
cause he had found his place. Farmers loved to hear 
his bellows blow. Pedlers and children laughed and 
talked with him as they passed. He was a poet, too. 
"The smoke from the forge," said he, "is wild ivy. See 
it creep up the walls and cling to the rafters." He 
gladly looked the whole country round in the face — 
there was so much honesty and fair play in the world. 
He was an efficient smithy, but more than that ; he was 
a success at the "flaming forge of life." The sparks 
that flew from his anvil envied the smiles on his face ; 

"His heart was in his work — and the heart 
Giveth grace unto every Art." 

It is not, thought Riley, musing on his "discovery," 
that a man must be a poet or an orator, or a geologist 
in order to be happy. The solution of the problem was 



254 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

this : "Find the niche nature designed you to fill and 
enter it with thanksgiving." 

He passed the shop in the summer of 1872. Thence 
onward for four years, one question incessantly called 
for an answer: What is my mission? Where is my 
place? "It was uppermost in my thought," said he — 
"the very dog-fennel at the roadside whispered it as I 
bowled from town to town." 

"Where are they — the Af terwhiles — 
Luring us the lengthening miles 
Of our lives ? Where is the dawn 
With the dew across the lawn? 
Where the sun that smites the frown 
Of the eastward-gazer down?" 

"I have been a happy man," said Henry Fuseli, "for 
I have always been employed in doing what I liked." 
Riley could not forget the fact that the British painter 
was eighty years old when he said it. The secret of his 
joy — how did the painter find it? Was it due to Lava- 
ter's speculations in Physiognomy? There was a "the- 
atrical description" of those speculations which (mirth- 
ful as it seemed afterward) claimed young Riley's 
serious attention. Lavater held that the human figure 
signified its nature — human features expressed char- 
acter. The history of an individual, future as well as 
past, could be read in the face as one would read from 
a printed page. Perhaps the eminent phrenologist had, 
after all, really helped Fuseli. He had told the painter 
that his profile indicated energy — the mouth 
promised a spirit of application — the nose 
seemed* to be the seat of intrepid genius — 
and so forth. At any rate, Riley was bent on 
finding out what a phrenologist thought of his profile. 
While "sojourning" in Marion, Indiana, in November, 



IN THE DARK 255 

1872, the opportunity came at White's Hall. The Emi- 
nent Physiognomist and Delineator of Character, Doc- 
tor James Hedley, came from St. Louis to deliver eight 
lectures. Riley attended them — with what result, he 
tells us in his jovial way in "An Adjustable Lunatic" : 

"No one ever reads my character" (says the lunatic) 
— "no one ever will. Why, I've had phrenologists grop- 
ing around among my bumps by the hour to no purpose, 
and physiognomists driving themselves cross-eyed ; but 
they never found it and never will. The very things 
of which I am capable they invariably place beyond my 
capacity; and, with like sageness, the very things I 
can't do they declare me to be a master hand at. Why, 
old Fowler himself (Doctor Hedley) here the other 
night, thumped my head as mellow as a May-apple, and 
never came within a mile of it." 

Nor could a man be explained and his place in the 
world be determined by genealogy. In that uncertain 
period and on several occasions afterward, Riley ex- 
pressed himself unreservedly on the subject. Doctor 
S. Weir Mitchell once remarked to him that genius is a 
glad freak of nature in a good humor. "In a very im- 
portant sense," said the Doctor, "it has neither grand- 
father nor grandchild." "Fishing for a pedigree," 
Riley added, "does not make a man successful." Family 
pride, this thing of tracing ancestry back to 
William the Conqueror — there was nothing in 
it. "Man is his own ancestor." He liked the fig- 
ure which made a great man a mountain with the 
valley of his ancestors on one side and the depression 
of posterity on the other. He and John Hay once joked 
about their nationality. They were not chance children, 
they said. They could trace their genealogy all the way 
back to their parents. They were alike in that they 



256 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

had back of them a little Scotch, a little English, a little 
German and a little French, but not enough of any one 
to make them anything but American. "I am Irish," 
said Riley, "from the word go. I show it in my tastes, 
I show it in my face — my face is a map of Ireland. 
My father's grandfather was Irish, and came from 
Cork or some old place over there, but never, when in 
my right mind, do I attribute my success to that fact. 
Did you ever try to count your ancestors?" he asked, 
while Hay still chuckled over his Irish sally. "W'y, 
I had so many great, great, great, great grandparents 
they could not crowd through the Alleghanies. Most 
of them had to remain on the other side." 

In those years of uncertainty, prior to 1876, Riley 
was at sea without compass. "I was floundering," he 
said, "from Devil's Den to Dismal Slough" (a figura- 
tive expression based on literal fact, a trip he once 
made in the "Buckeye" through a swampy region in 
Tipton County) . "Why is it," he asked, "that mortals 
in their efforts to find their place in the world have to 
search for it through the driving rain of blinding tears, 

While out across the deeps of night 
They lift the sails of prayer? 
Why voyage off in quest of light 
Nor find it anywhere?" 

A less dismal picture presented itself one morning 
while riding along on an upper tributary of White- 
water. A bobolink pitched from the summit of a tree 
to the bosom of a meadow just as Riley had seen him 
pictured in the old McGuffey Reader. The fluttering 
songster was all sunshine, all sensibility and enjoy- 
ment. He was literally overcome with the ecstasy of 
his own music. The meadow was his place — his home. 



IN THE DARK 257 

"The bobolink," remarked Riley, "plays first fiddle all 
the time." 

While scurrying through the country, "silently and 
slowly working out the train of indecisions in his 
mind," Riley was busy with the study of means to 
ends. While the "Buckeye" wound through a lumber 
section one day, he caroled the song of the saw-mill : 

"They who turn the whizzing wheel of labor should be 
blessed 

With such return as life-long efforts earn, 
And in the arms of Fortune, warmly pressed 

Without a fever-thought of care to burn 
The peaceful brow that sinks to blissful rest." 

There was the farmer, "the founder of human civiliza- 
tion," who seemed to be solving the problem for all 
men. The earth provided the soil — and tools were also 
provided. "There were harrows," he jingled, 

'"There were reapers and mowers, 
And patent grain sowers, 
And drillers and tillers, 
And cucumber hillers — 
And all the long list of a thousand or more 
That were found at the old Agricultural Store." 

Why should there not be tools for the artist, or poet? 
— a vast storehouse somewhere on which he might 
draw forevermore. "Why this floundering!" he ex- 
claimed to his traveling chum, bewailing the sad lot of 
poets ; "I can find no more happiness m a hub and spoke 
factory" — and while they drove by a factory at Wabash 
the jingle dripped from his lips: 

"The hands are as busy 
As so many bees 
Who work themselves dizzy 
In blossoming trees ; 




258 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

And all the long hours 
From morning till night 
Their hearts are as flowers 
That blossom delight." 

It was all a question of knowing where to go, what 
to do and how to do it. 

"Gracious God!" exclaimed Bill Nye, referring to 
Riley's ignorance of his mission, "he was blind as the 
fish in Echo River. There he was in the vast store- 
house of the Land of Used-To-Be, the shapeless masses, 
the tools, the materials all about him. The tinkle of 
bells and fairy bugles were calling to him, but he was 
dull of hearing. From day to day capital facts of 
existence were hidden from his eyes. Suddenly in 
1876, the mist rolled up and revealed them. He was 
like a sheep-herder I knew in Wyoming, who had been 
cooped up in a little eggshell valley for twenty years. 
One day he concluded to stroll farther away from the 
corral than he had ever strolled before. He ascended 
a high hill when lo ! the snow-covered summits of the 
Rockies burst upon his wondering eyes. There stretch- 
ing hundreds of miles from north to south were the 
blue fields of the sublime." 

In those misty days Riley was far from home. He 
was the sea-swallow among the rooks and rushes of 
the land, Robert Louis Stevenson describes : 

"Far from the loud sea-beaches, 
Where he goes fishing and crying, 
Here in the inland garden 
Why is the sea-gull flying? 

"There are no fish to dive for; 
Here is the corn and lea ; 
Here are the green trees rustling, 
Hie away home to the sea. 



IN THE DARK 259 

"Pity the bird that has wandered ! 
Pity the sailor ashore! 
Hurry him home to the ocean, 
Let him come here no more ! 

"High on the sea-cliff ledges, 
The white gulls are trooping and crying ; 
Here among rooks and roses, 
Why is the sea-gull flying?" 

Why should a poet be tossing among paint buckets, 
sign-boards and concert wagons? Why should he have 
to beg for bread in Grub Street? Why hitch Pegasus 
to a plow, or condemn Apollo to pasture flocks for 
Admetus? The first consideration for success in any 
field was this, that a man find real satisfaction, real 
romance in his work. There were some things, as 
Ruskin said, men must do for bread, but they were not 
called upon to do anything into which they could not 
put their hearts. "See the young men from the halb 
of learning," wrote Robert Burdette, from his Burling- 
ton sanctum. "Of the twenty-three who recently 
stepped across the threshold of life from an Eastern 
college, eleven are clerking in an auction store at four- 
teen dollars a month, one is running a fish-boat, two 
are learning the house-painting trade, and one is 
starving to death in a law office." 

"My Funny Fellow," remarked Riley, commenting 
on the humorous item, "can be meek as a Quaker. When 
he wrote that he was as solemn as an undertaker. He 
was jesting, but what he wrote was not a jest. There 
is something wrong — whether a man is self-educated 
or college-educated — when his work is not in harmony 
with his natural bent." 

While dizzy with uncertainties, Riley went one night 
to see Peg Woffington played at the old Metropolitan 



260 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Theater in Indianapolis. Scenes in the first and fourth 
acts — the Green Room of the Theater Royal and Con- 
vent Garden — were but vaguely remembered ; but what 
happened in Triplet's lodgings impressed him deeply. 
The cramped apartment was on a narrow back street 
in London. "Bricked in on all sides like a tomb, it was 
always solitary, always shady and sad." Theater pa- 
trons of forty years ago will recall that Triplet was 
a man ambitious to be a painter, actor and dramatist, 
but who in reality was a "goose" and had no genius 
either for writing, painting or acting. He was trying 
to support an invalid wife and four starving children. 
He had submitted tragedies to a theatrical manager. 
They had been returned without a word. The real 
tragedy came when Triplet realized the full weight of 
the blow. Then a sigh escaped him. The poor, rejected 
tragedies fell to the ground and he buried his head in 
his hands. 

Then the resourceful Woffington entered Triplet's 
apartment with a basket of refreshments. When 
she had satisfied the hungry family with food, 
she seized his fiddle and showed him another of 
her enchantments. She played to the eye as 
well as to the ear and with such radiance that the 
children could not sit in their chairs; they could not 
keep still. She jumped up; so did they. She gave a 
wild Irish horroo. She put the fiddle in Triplet's 
hands. He played like Paganini. Woffington covered 
the buckle in gallant style (said Charles Reade, to 
whom Riley as well as the actors were indebted for the 
story). A great sunbeam had come into their home. 
They put their hands to their hearts; they looked at 
one another, and then at the goddess who had revived 
them. A few moments before, they were sorrowful 



IN THE DARK 261 

and hopeless. Now joy was in their hearts, and sorrow 
and sighing were fled. 

"It was magical," said Riley, borrowing the novel- 
ist's thought, "that a mortal could so magnetize the 
soul of man. To enter the home of the poor and tune 
drooping hearts to daylight and hope — there is no 
nobler mission than that. Womngton did what she 
could for Triplet, but the Fates had other things in 
store. They thumped him some more. The managers 
rejected other tragedies. He failed in comedy. God 
knows it took a long while to break his heart, but at 
last it was broken — broken — quite broken. The only 
hit he made was an inheritance of twenty thousand 
pounds — and a somewhat happy exit the year our 
Great Washington died." 

All through the play and weeks after, one thought 
was paramount in Riley's mind — the tragedy of unrec- 
ognized genius. "Triplet was a goose," said he, "but 
all are not geese who struggle for recognition. Was 
I a goose? Or, what is more tragic, was I an im- 
prudent genius? Was I to struggle for years with 
difficulties and sink at last, as Emerson said, chilled, 
exhausted and fruitless, like a giant slaughtered by 
pins? I was in the dark." 

There was Triplet. Nothing that had happened upon 
the great stage of the world seemed real to him. Was 
that the way of all the earth? Were there no such 
things as hearts and firesides and reward for happy 
endeavor? Was it all paint and paste and diamonds — 
all chance and anarchy? Was it true that "life is a tale 
told by an idiot" — that man is "a walking shadow — a 
poor, poor player, who frets and struts his hour upon 
the stage, and then is heard no more" ? 

To add to the winter of his discontent Riley was 



262 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

afflicted with that insidious Hoosier malady, known as 
the blues. His plight is best told in his own words : 

"I admit," he wrote Mary Hartwell Catherwood, 
"that I have long fondled the actual belief that 
I am a poet, but it pains me to add that I have 
latterly received such evidence to the contrary that I 
have no hope of ever proving it to the world. But 
believe me, I am glad to know that others are succeed- 
ing while I fail. From the very opening remark you 
make regarding your own productions, I judge that 
your work commands remuneration, which certainly 
must be marvelous encouragement. I am sure that all 
the poems I have ever written, if bundled together, 
would not bring as much in market value as a bundle 
of radishes. In fact, I never succeeded in selling but 
one poem in my life, and I think there must have been 
some fatal mistake about that, for the editor when I 
next wrote, gleefully offering him another effort, wrote 
me saying he regretted that the sudden suspension of 
the magazine since the publication of my first poem 
compelled the return of my second. And I have always 
thought the death of that hitherto prosperous publica- 
tion was on my hands. And so I worry on, but will 
you forgive me? I meant to write more briefly and say 
something. I have done neither." 

In that period of confusion, Riley was perplexed, 
distressed sometimes by relatives and friends giving 
him advice — the complacency of dull old men lecturing 
fiery youth on plans of study and habits of thought. 
Like the mysterious lodger in Old Curiosity Shop, he 
wanted to do as he liked : "I want to go to bed when I 
like, get up when I like, come in when I like, go out 
when I like — to be asked no questions, and be sur- 
rounded by no spies." 



IN THE DARK 263 

Well-meaning friends were innocently in league with 
the fickle impulses of his own nature, furiously com- 
manding him to do this and do that. Listening to them 
he fancied himself "poor, orphaned, insignificant. What 
was he that he should resist their will and think and 
act for himself? Every week new showers of decep- 
tions to baffle and distract him." There were sign- 
painting showers that a few years before would have 
hurried him to the paintshop on wings. One order 
from an advertising agent for a dozen signs — one gro- 
cery — one dry goods — one drug — one sewing machine 
— one clothing — one boots and shoes — one stoves and 
tinware : in addition, one jewelry (watches and clocks) , 
one planing mill representing laths, shingles, dressed 
lumber, and such material as mills turn out ; one hotel 
suitable to put in one newspaper column, the rest 
suitable for two columns in county papers — all made 
in form of a rebus and ready for engraver in ten days. 

Again there came an inquiry from a friend "down 
in Old Monroe," who wanted to know the price of 
county cards, barn cards, fence cards and so forth. 
There were several good sign-painting prospects in 
Bloomington. "Now, old fellow," said the letter, 
"come speedily. Telegraph me yes if you can come; 
if not, telegraph me no. One sign is gold leafing, a 
prescription case in a drug store; another is a fancy 
sign for a butcher. Come immediately. I have the 
'rocks' in my jeans to pay your board for a month." 

There came also a call from the "Graphics." One of 
their number had closed a contract in "Old Virginny" 
to advertise a tobacco company. "I want you for a 
partner," he wrote. "They guarantee fifty dollars a 
week and probably one hundred dollars. I can make 
it sure one hundred and fifty dollars a week for us two. 



264 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

They want a sign of a log cabin with a negro in the 
door, red shirt and so forth. Make it on 8 by 10 
paper. Make it hot. Send to Lynchburg and I will 
work up the finest snap of the year." 

These orders and inquiries, and others of like char- 
acter received indifferent attention. The "rising litter- 
ateur" painted an occasional sign, but the business was 
growing more and more incongruous. Fortune knows 
he sorely needed the "rocks," but he was disinclined to 
pursue them at his old trade. "There is a delightful 
tang to greenbacks," he remarked, "but it is not engrav- 
ing orders I need now. I need a Peg Wofiington who 
will loan me fifty pounds to be paid at Doomsday." 

Fifteen years later, while touring Scotland, Riley 
reverted to the days when he was distressed with debt. 
"The most mortifying picture in all experience," he 
said, "is a man like Robert Burns commissioned of 
Heaven to write tender human verse, and having at the 
same time to make a wretched appeal for money, a 
pitiful cry for a loan to provide against the commonest 
household necessities. When I entered the house where 
Burns died, and walked through the kitchen and up 
the winding stairway to the room where he wrote his 
songs, I could hear above everything else the echo of 
his cry. It is fine in Franklin to look back and write 
pleasantly about the time when he was poor and home- 
less, but I'll wager a town lot that life was not romantic 
when he had but one loaf of bread in Philadelphia. 
The sunlight is on the other side of the earth when a 
man faces a misty future." 

Writing the "Golden Girl," a brilliant young woman, 
who was then — November, 1876 — in search of health 
in the Black River pine woods of Wisconsin, Riley 
disavowed interest in things that once claimed a large 



IN THE DARK 265 

share of his attention. "My going with the Graphics," 
he said, "seems not to suit you any better than it does 
me. I don't know that I shall go with them after all. 
You have no idea how distasteful it is to me. I 
some way feel as though I were being made a tool of to 
advance the interests of those who would smile to think 
'what a fool he is/ Since my reformation I begin to 
feel an unusual sense of my importance and if I do 
lower myself to some uncongenial pursuit, it will be 
because an adverse fate drives me to it. I have heard 
nothing further from the Graphics since my last letter 
to you, and I believe I am happier. I wish I could 
make my living, for I am tired of the brush. I have 
been very busily occupied with literary matters. I 
have had a perfect hemorrhage of inspiration, produc- 
ing quite a number of poems and of better quality than 
ever. I have written to Longfellow, Trowbridge and 
two or three lesser literary lights and enclosed them 
'samples' of my fancy work; and with every reason 
to believe I shall have gratifying comments from them 
all." 

Referring afterward to the "hemorrhage of inspira- 
tion/' Riley said he wrote all night— "wrote till the 
rooster went into ecstasy on the subject of daylight." 

One "blue" day in autumn he wrote his friend, 
B. S. Parker of Newcastle, a letter which occa- 
sioned the latter's reply in October, 1876, the 
year "Blue Jeans" Williams defeated Benjamin 
Harrison for governor. "How do you expect 
one at such a time," asks Parker, "to think of any- 
think but the blices — 'Blue Jeans/ blue times and 
blue devils? I think a man who has a soul above but- 
tons, and who occasionally hears the soft whispers of 
the Muse ought not to allow himself to become inter- 



266 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

ested in politics (nor in sign-painting and the law, 
added Riley parenthetically) . A poet must be a vaga- 
bond in a certain sense if he would not fail to discover 
the good that is in him. I do not mean that he should 
travel like a gipsy or play the tramp or starve and 
freeze by turns, but that he should not feel that exist- 
ence is a thing to which no man has a just right unless 
he becomes of use to bankers, horse-swappers, curb- 
stone brokers and the like. In other words, if I could 
live my little life over, I would be content to be a poet 
and scribbler and only enter the so-called business field 
just so far as was necessary to life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness." 

There came also a letter from another friend, the 
fluent temperance advocate, Luther Benson, who had 
fought Demon Rum from boyhood. He knew from 
experience that life can be a nightmare of mockery, 
as he mournfully expressed it, a black, rayless waste 
of desolation. "I feel that neither of us," he wrote, 
"could make a meal on pleasure. I am handcuffed to 
misery and chained to agony." Riley was painfully 
conscious of a kindred affliction, but more acute than 
this was the pain he suffered from the darkness that 
obscured his choice of an occupation. His father 
saw no hope of success for him in the literary field. 
There was a squib in the law office which the father 
once read aloud in the hope of discouraging his son's 
literary ambition. That the son might feel its sting 
he read it in the presence of brother attorneys : 

"What are the poets, take them as they fall, 
Good, bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all? 
Them and their works in the same class you'll find: 
They are the mere waste-paper of mankind." 

Evidently the attorneys and the father made some 



IN THE DARK 267 

impression on the youthful poet, for it is a matter of 
record that he promised his father he "would not waste 
his days writing poetry." Almost immediately the 
Muse turned the promise down. As Longfellow 
wrote "The Spirit of Poetry" and "The Song of 
the Birds" in a law office, so Riley wrote "An Old 
Sweetheart" and "If I Knew What Poets Know." He 
kept his "law office poems," as he called them, in his 
desk under lock and key for several weeks, did not have 
the courage to let his father or the attorneys know 
what he was doing. The latter poem was written in one 
forenoon. "I commenced writing," said Riley, "but 
had great difficulty in getting it under way. While 
thrumming abstractedly with my pencil, my shoes at- 
tracted my attention and I decided to have them half- 
soled. I went immediately from the office down the 
stairway into the street, making directly for the shoe- 
shop across the way. I remember the street was 
muddy. Before reaching the shop, I stopped, turned 
about, retraced my steps to the office and wrote the 
poem rapidly to its conclusion. I had to labor on it — it 
didn't just make itself, but in a short time it was 
finished ; I had the shoes repaired in the afternoon." 

He yearned for the opinion of friends on "An Old 
Sweetheart," but was somewhat at a loss to know just 
how to direct their attention to the poem. He mailed 
a copy to the "Golden Girl," who from the first 
had been displeased over his waste of time in the law 
office. "If you," he asked, referring to the poem, "were 
sending this fiction of an overwrought brain to friends, 
what would you say about it?" She promptly put her- 
self in his place and returned the following: 

"In humbly and almost fearfully submitting this 
last fiction of an overwrought brain to the unappre- 



268 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

dative and ofttimes careless care of the U. S. Mail, 
I must in confidence confess it is not given to the 
world to reform public schools — change the form of 
government of our prisons — lead to a better state of 
affairs in our pulpits — nor yet to 'show up spiritualism 
in its true light' — but to show conclusively the utterly 
demoralizing effect of a lawyer in a Green Field of 
labor." 

The reader should note here that "An Old Sweet- 
heart" — perhaps the most popular American poem — 
was the product of what seems to mortal vision un- 
poetic conditions. It was written in that hour of deep 
darkness just before the dawn and started on its way 
to immortality by the fitful winds of uncertainty. At 
the narrowest part of the defile, says the Persian 
proverb, the valley begins to open. 

His legal ventures ended peremptorily with his 
second attempt. "In the dog-days of a summer hot as 
the hinges of Purgatory," said he, "I tucked my 'law 
poems' up my sleeve, turned my back on the attorney 
business, and my face to a future as mysterious and 
hopeless as a block of mining stock." 

Golden encouragement came from the "Golden Girl." 
She infused strength in his resolution. He had sent her 
Bleak House to read. In response she assured him that 
the law had too many convolutions for poets. "Have 
little to do with people who are too deep for you," she 
wrote, in the guise of Mrs. Bagnet. "Be careful of 
interference with matters you do not understand — do 
nothing in the dark — be a party to nothing under- 
handed or mysterious — and never put your foot where 
you can not see the ground." 

The author of "Little Brown Hands," Mary H. Krout, 
wrote also, in October, 1876, of his dislike of the law 



IN THE DARK 269 

as a profession. "That goes to prove," said she, "that 
you are a gentleman of better judgment than I even 
supposed you to be." 

In that year of 1876, the Voices called to him again. 
There seemed at times a deceptive clamor about them, 
but frequently they were musical. He listened to them 
and began to sing of them : 

"Down in the night, he heard them — 
The Voices — unknown — unguessed ; 
They whispered and lisped and murmured 
And would not let him rest." 

"Yes, he heard voices," said Myron Reed, "and he 
was lonesome, lonesome as Joan of Arc in the garden. 
She heard voices, but nobody else heard them. Each 
man has his private individual revelation of what he 
ought to think and say and do." 

There came also the Voice of wisdom from Long- 
fellow, one of the rare providential admonitions of his 
life. One day he gleaned this from "Morituri Salu- 
tamus" : 

"Study yourself; and most of all note well 
Wherein kind nature meant you to excel" — 

sovereign lines, and henceforward the key to much that 
Riley said and did. He saw as never before the signifi- 
cance of youth — its illusions, aspirations and dreams. 
It assured him that all possibilities were in his hands. 
He was not to hesitate, but with ambitious feet, 

"Ascend the ladder leaning on the cloud." 

Henceforth he thought deeply on his mission. As he 
wrote in one of his "law office poems," hearts in pain 



270 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

should be glad again and the false should be true if he 
knew what poets know: 

"If I knew what poets know, 

I would find a theme 
Sweeter than the placid flow 

Of the fairest dream : 
I would sing of love that lives 

On the errors it forgives ; 
And the world would better grow 

If I knew what poets know." 

In that transitional year, he did not, as Byron in 
a dream, wander darkling on a rayless, pathless coast. 
The beacons had not all disappeared. But he did liter- 
ally look up "with mad disquietude into a dull sky and 
then lie down and hide his eyes and weep." As is seen 
in lines he then wrote and afterward omitted from his 
poem, "In the Dark": 

"He moaned with a passionate yearning, 
And a flood of hopes and fears 
Flowed o'er his troubled spirit, 
And ebbed in a tide of tears. 

"The gleam of a star through the window 

Fell like a soothing touch ; 
And darkness wore to the dawning 
For which he longed so much." 



CHAPTER XIII 

VISION OF HIS MISSION 

WALKING one April morning through an 
orchard with a friend, his eyes on the blos- 
soming trees and his thoughts in the sky, 
Riley suddenly pitched forward into a post-hole. In 
the twinkling of an eye the Tennysonian sentiment 
came to his lips: — 

"0 let the solid ground 
Not fail beneath my feet 
Before my life has found 
What some have found so sweet; 
Then let come what come may, 
What matter if I go mad, 
I shall have had my day." 

The lines, repeated at random, were an innocent 
prelude to his "prolific decade" — the ten years 
of poetic effusion, whose natal days, in the 
providence of Heaven, mantled with rapture the 
summer of 1876. A glimpse of that rapture is 
seen in his remarks, three years following, to the 
Thousandth Man, Myron Reed. One winter night 
they were talking on the significance of dreams. Riley 
was in a state of ecstasy over a vision that had crossed 
his path. "Nor was I on the road to Damascus," said 
he, "unless all men travel that way. I was vibrating 
between the woods and the law office, had no com- 
pany except my own thoughts; but my ears were 
opened; I heard a voice — heard it for several days. 
271 



272 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Why it should call, so unexpectedly, to me, an ob- 
scure mortal in a backwoods corner of the world, 
is beyond my comprehension." 

"Pleasures and visions," returned Reed, "are come 
upon, or they come upon you. Only one man has seen 
Niagara Falls, and he was in search of something else 
— something prosaic, something that had work in 
it; and all of a sudden he heard the steady throb 
and pound, and a little later saw the blue and white 
wonder." 

And what was the vision? Just the plain simple 
fact that he was to write poetry. "Jay Whit," the 
sign-painter, the Argonaut, was to be the humble in- 
strument for the transmission of song to men ; a voice 
he was to be for the "inarticulate masses — the soiled 
and the pure — the rich and the poor — the loved and 
the unloved." Whence the songs? The Argonaut 
did not know — 

"All hitherward blown 
From the misty realm, that belongs 
To the vast Unknown. 

"The voices pursue him by day, 
And haunt him by night, 
And he listens, and needs must obey 
When the Angel says, 'Write I 1 " 

His fortunate opportunity had come. Not in a mo- 
ment, like Hugh Wynne's, but in a fortnight he had 
made a decisive resolution, which, once made, con- 
trolled him, and permitted no future change of plan. 

"Then straightway before 
His swimming eyes, all vividly was wrought 
A vision that was with him evermore." 

Now that he had a definite object, his character and 



VISION OF HIS MISSION 273 

purpose were to be written broadly on his face. No 
waste of time in platitudes; none of the inexpressive 
similarity that obscures the men and women who go 
in public to see and be seen. He was to be an in- 
dividual doing the work Heaven designed him to do, 
and in doing it, he was to give expression to truth. 
The vision supplied him with the sides of a ladder, 
but, as Dickens had told him in the old Shoe-Shop, 
the cleats were to be made of stuff to stand wear and 
tear, and the Argonaut was to make and nail them on. 
His personal reference to the vision was always 
virile and stimulating. "I had a dream once years 
and years ago," he wrote a friend after he had tamed 
the lion of public recognition, "a vision that I should 
some day be just what I am this minute, and it made 
me a different person." He was an impatient wind 
from inland regions come suddenly to the seaside, a 
wind that had been retarded by tanglewood and 
ridges. There was a call from the deep ; the prospect 
was divine as his own lines attest: 

"And the swelling sea invited me 
With a smiling, beckoning hand, 
And I spread my wings for a flight as free 
As ever a sailor plans, 

When his thoughts are wild and his heart beguiled 
With a dream of foreign lands." 

The dream was the more perfect image of the dream 
he had when the musician played— the "fine frenzy" 
that entranced him while under the sway of Ole Bull's 
magic wand. 

Writing the "Golden Girl," he was pleased to 
tell her that he had been busily occupied with 
literary matters, that he had had (as we have 
seen) "a perfect hemorrhage of inspiration." 



274 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"Crowding measures" had gushed like a fountain 
from his heart. He had produced poems of better 
quality than ever, and had sent "samples of his fancy 
work" to Trowbridge and Longfellow. The vision was 
"heaven's own baptismal rite." In the Indianapolis 
Journal office in after years, he was wont to call it, 
"My Vision of Summer" : 

" 'Twas a marvelous vision of Summer — i 
That morning the dawn was late, 
And came like a long dream-ridden guest 
Through the gold of the Eastern gate. 

"And back from the lands enchanted, 
Where my earliest mirth was born, 
The thrill of a laugh was blown to me 
Like the blare of an elfin horn." 

The tuneful flame had the fervor of the "poetic rage" 
that flowed from the heart of Burns when the Scottish 
Muse came to the clay cottage to bind the holly round 
his brow. It was the gleam that Tennyson saw in the 
summer-morn of life. 

As Riley said in "The Shower," he was trans- 
figured; his empty soul brimmed over; he was 
drenched with the love of God. He was also aware 
of a happiness in his work hitherto unknown. What 
he did was interesting — "interesting," said he, "be- 
cause I was happy in my thoughts. The more inter- 
esting my thoughts, the happier I was." 

"A vision may beget some wonder and well it may," 
said Ike Walton, "for most of our world are at present 
possessed with an opinion that visions and miracles 
are ceased." "They have not ceased," said Riley. 
"Again and again I have been guided by an invisible 
Destiny. There has almost always come to me a fore- 



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VISION OF HIS MISSION 275 

cast of events in my life. I once told my brother that 
if I put several of my stories and poems together and 
gave attention to delivery, I could succeed on the plat- 
form. He laughed derisively and for a time that was 
the end of that dream. My old schoolmaster, Lee O. 
Harris, used to send poems to the Indianapolis Sentinel 
and get beautiful notices. I wondered whether the day 
would come when I should contribute to the Journal 
and read praise of my work. I like to believe as the 
pious men of old that every man has a particular 
guardian angel — his Daemon — to attend him in all his 
dangers, both of body and soul. There have been crises 
in my life when I was awed by what I saw. Like 
Job — a spirit passed before my face ; my hair stood up ; 
fear and trembling came upon me, and made all my 
bones to shake." 

The Argonaut had dreams while drifting about with 
the "Graphics" — not a vision, however; not the clear, 
decisive disclosure of what he was to do. 

He had a dream when he received a talisman (as he 
thought) in the letter from Hearth and Home — his 
first check for a poem. An air-castle it was with tissue 
of riches. He saw himself an Aladdin with the magic 
ring on his finger, in a garden, among trees with fruits 
of many colors, their foliage beautifully blended with 
emeralds, pearls and rubies. In fancy he filled his 
pockets with diamonds from the trees and afterward, 
by scattering them right and left in handfuls, gained 
the affections of the people as the young Aladdin had 
done. It was dawn, midday and moonlight — all in one : 

"A thousand fairy throngs 
Flung at him, from their flashing hands, 
The echoes of their songs." 

Throughout his "misty years" his mind was a nur- 



276 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

sery for "thick-coming fancies." He pleased his whim- 
sical tendency with one from the "British Book." The 
gay John Flaxman, fond of merry legends, had invented 
for the amusement of his family the story of the Chi- 
nese Casket, giving its genealogy, locating the original 
in the bowers of Paradise and afterward a reproduc- 
tion of it, made of scented wood and precious gems, in 
China. There it was protected in a sanctuary by a 
princess, who, understanding the language of the birds, 
had been taught to prize it by what she heard in the 
song of the nightingale. The Casket was to contain the 
verse and maxims of poets and philosophers. There 
coming a day when the treasure was unsafe in China, 
being exposed to the malice of magicians, the princess 
carried it to Mount Hermon and deposited it on "a 
high and holy hill." There Sadi wrote for the Casket 
while a guardian angel watched over it. The poet died 
and Hafiz wrote, but when loose visions floated before 
his sight and his strains lost their purity and virtue, 
indignant angels snatched the Casket away, resolved to 
bear it to a distant isle, where virtuous works of art 
and virtuous people abound. The angelic keepers 
floated with their treasure over inland vales toward the 
Golden West. The Muses saluted the flying pageant 
as it passed, the Colossus of Rhodes bowed his head and 
the gods of Greece clapped their hands. The fleets of 
nations waved their pennants in approval and in due 
season 

"The godlike genius of the British Isle 
Received the Casket with benignant smile." 

Flaxman's story ended with Britain but Riley and 
an early booklover of his native town, whose fancy was 
capricious like his own, carried the Casket across the 



VISION OF HIS MISSION 277 

Atlantic. Longfellow had written his sweetest verse 
for it and both thanked Heaven the poet had kept it 
free from the taint of corruption and vice. "My boy," 
said his friend half-seriously, "the day will come when 
you will write songs for the Casket." The friend (an 
intuitive young woman) was not certain that he would 
succeed Longfellow but certain she was he would do 
what he could, and that what he did would be musical. 
"It was the thought of an idle moment," said Riley, "a 
joke taken seriously" — seriously, just as one other time 
he was capering along the street with some friends, 
talking about a wondrous casket he had found and his 
purpose to fill it with verse — the friends thinking him 
in earnest when he was "only joking." 

It may be true that "God hides the germs of every 
living thing, that no record holds the moment by the 
clock, of any discovery" ; but surely, if mortal ever 
knew he was born again, ever knew he was face to face 
with a turning-point in his career, Whitcomb Riley 
knew it the summer of 1876. A period in his life had 
come when he lived years in a few weeks. Henceforth 
his faith seldom failed. Misgivings became less nu- 
merous. The vision was 

"The fountain light of all his day, 
The master light of all his seeing." 

"I had come through life," he said, "just dallying in 
the shallow eddies of a brook; now I was a river. I 
yearned to float and flow out God-ward. Life was rich- 
er than ever I dreamed it could be when I was a trust- 
ful child peering out across the future. There is no 
rapture like the joy of finding your place and the assur- 
ance that you have found it. It is to be transported 
from midnight to the rosy light of morning." 



278 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"A great ripe radiance grew at last 
And burst like a bubble of gold, 
Gilding the way that the feet danced on — 
And that was the dawn — the Dawn !" 

That Riley concealed the particulars of his vision 
from his friends has since been thought rather too 
diplomatic for one who usually did things in the open. 
Whisper it to no one, said the prudent Longfellow — 
keep your plans a secret in your own bosom — the mo- 
ment you uncork them the flavor escapes. Riley pro- 
ceeded to act accordingly, not only with reference to 
the vision but in other ways. His brother, as we have 
seen, ridiculed an early dream and others had treated 
his forecasts of a career for himself with similar in- 
difference. Such had been his humiliation that he re- 
solved to go alone. "I did not go round sounding a 
timbrel in the peopled ears," he said, "but clung to my 
purpose and kept my own counsel" — and doubtless he 
did. Myron Reed seems to have been the first friend to 
know of the vision as a revelation. And, characteristic- 
ally, he gave the Argonaut another bit of wisdom for 
his log-book. "The Cunard Line," said Reed, "has never 
lost a passenger. That is not a matter of good luck; 
that is a matter of good oak, and good iron, and good 
seamanship." Fortunately the Argonaut was provided 
with a shield and boom both made of iron — an "iron 
mask" and an iron will. The former kept him from the 
intrusions of strangers and friends. With the latter 
he stuck to his purpose through all kinds of weather, 
•with all sorts and conditions of men. Through all the 
vicissitudes of his literary fortune, his will, like a Rich- 
ard Doubledick, was his unsleeping companion — "firm 
as a rock, and true as the sun." It was not a blustering 
will; rather was it like the steady tug of gravitation. 






VISION OF HIS MISSION 279 

With that and a little motto from Bleak House — 
"Trust in Providence and Your Own Efforts" — he 
went forth to transmute the white moments of exist- 
ence into music for the sons and daughters of men. 

He needed the iron will from the beginning. His 
friends tempted him with "that object of universal de- 
votion, the almighty dollar. ,, Counselors came to per- 
suade him that fame (as they thought of his future) 
was "the satellite of fashion, " that the applause of the 
crowd was worth more than the silent devotion to an 
ideal, and his father discouraged his venture in the 
new field: 

"My son! the quiet road 
Which men frequent, where peace and blessings travel, 
Follows the river's course, the valley's bending." 

A rover, with whom Riley had once toured a few 
Indiana towns, was "not making a dollar with 
his present show in Pittsburg." He was "waiting for 
something to turn up. We are going to take a 'Rip 
Van Winkle Company' out in three weeks. We will do 
the small towns. You can have any part you want 
except Rip. Rip is the best drawing bill in America." 

The "Golden Girl," a talented musician, who also 
had dreams of the stage, sought him for a role in 
"The Star of Mystery Company," or rather the frag- 
ments of the company. There was to be Mirth — 
Music — Magic — and Mystery. "Should I," she 
wrote, "secure a position for you with good salary, 
will you go? That is my hope of seeing you. Won't 
we have Fun? You will carry my grip and go to 
breakfast with me and take me to the opera house. 
Yes, and waltz with me behind the scenes while the 
orchestra plays The Elue Danube/ and people go 



280 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

wild with expectation waiting for the 'show to begin/ 
and little boys grow impatient and pummel each 
other on the front seats. And we will go down the 
street the next day and see the people. You will get 
mad at everybody I don't like and I'll like everybody 
you do. Life will be enchantment." 

Nor did the proffers of advice cease with Riley's 
choice of the literary field. He was annoyed with 
"overtures from foreign lands," as he phrased his 
temptations, till the publication of his first book. "The 
lecture field is the place for you — and don't you for* 
get it," wrote a literary aspirant three years after his 
vision. "Writing is a starvation process. A fellow 
is likely to die of inanition. As a friend of mine says, 
'Fate overtakes him so dern sudden' ; and it makes no 
difference how good the writing may be. A writer 
must run the gauntlet that looks to the beginner like 
the track of the Union Pacific railway stretching in 
a straight line clear across the western edge of space, 
and all Vie way up hill." 

The Argonaut was unshaken. None of these things 
moved him, nor others of like nature though ever so 
numerous and persistent. He gave heart and soul to 
his poems, thinking about them and writing them while 
painting signs for his daily bread. 

There was singleness of purpose in the vision. It 
did not trouble Riley with thoughts of being a great 
man. Launcelot said it not more humbly than he : 

"In me there dwells 
No greatness, save it be some far-off touch 
Of greatness to know well I am not great." 

Seldom if ever was a young man of genius more 
ignorant of his powers. He was not certain that he 






VISION OF HIS MISSION 281 

possessed genius. That "gift of God" might be his; 
time would tell. For many years he had doubts of 
the value of what he wrote and its reception by the 
world, but never after the vision had he a shadow 
of doubt that he was commissioned to sing. 

Riley had a vision of his mission, but not a vision 
of the obstacles. Whatever situation in life you ever 
wish or propose for yourself, said the old poet Shen- 
stone, acquire a clear and lucid idea of the inconveni- 
ences attending it. Riley acquired no such lucid idea 
but plunged at once into a sea of troubles — or rather 
some invisible something forced him into it. He did 
not count the cost. After he had been buffeted on 
the sea, and his work was practically done, he saw 
that the vision had shown but one side of the picture. 
It was significant, he thought, that the Golden Fleece 
— his fanciful name for poetry — had been nailed to a 
tree in the grove of the war-god. The lesson was this, 
that poetry is an inaccessible thing. "The people think 
the way of the singer is the w r ay of peace," he remarked 
after he had practically fulfilled his mission. "They 
are mistaken. From first to last the poet has to war 
against discouragement, nightmares, blockades, and 
other perverse conditions." It was another way of his 
saying that the poet is a Pilgrim. 

"The peculiar thing about us," wrote his friend Reed, 
"is our disobedience. We see the light and hear the 
voice but heed it not. We are woefully afraid of being 
alone with God and the vision of our province." The 
advice was timely. Riley had written on the tablet 
of his being — obedience to the light, but like all aspir- 
ing men, his pure mind was refreshed when stirred 
up by way of remembrance. Thus was he launched on 
a literary career, looking ever upward and always 



282 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

with a true sense of the dignity of his mission, though 
at intervals he "played with jingle" for relaxation 
and amusement. True he was to have little rest 
and less peace; but he was to "enjoy the fiery con- 
sciousness of his own activity." The vision was an 
abiding comfort. He was twenty-six years old. What 
a day of rapture had been his had he been permitted 
to part the veil of the future, and see on the further 
shore of his career, one of his beautiful books, and 
read from the author of Pike County Ballads, per- 
haps the most cordial letter he ever received — "the 
finest letter ever penned," was Riley's word. Long- 
fellow wrote him the year of the vision that he had 
"the true poetic faculty and insight." Then was the 
damn — he was beginning to do the thing. When Hay 
wrote him, twenty-six years later, he had done it: 

Washington, D. C, Nov. 12, 1902. 
Dear Mr. Riley — 

I thank you most cordially for thinking of me and 
sending me your "Book of Joyous Children." I was 
alone last night — my joyous little people have grown 
up and left me. My fine boy is dead — my two girls 
are married, my young son is away at school — and so 
I read, in solitary enjoyment, these delightful lyrics, 
so full of feeling and easy natural music. It is a 
great gift you have, and you have not been disobedi- 
ent to the heavenly vision. Long may you live to 
enjoy it, and share it in your generous way with others. 

Yours faithfully, 

John Hay. 






CHAPTER XIV 

THE GOLDEN GIRL 

WHITCOHB RILEY dreamed of love and mar- 
riage. Not to admit this would be equivalent 
to denying the qualities! of the true poet. In- 
adequately, and sometimes half-seriously, he expressed 
his dream in verse: — 

"And oh my heart — lie down! Keep still! 
If ever we meet, as I pray we will; 
All ideal things will become fixed facts — 
The stars won't wane and the moon won't wax; 
And my soul will sing in a ceaseless glee, 
When I find the woman that rhymes with me." 

That he never found his mate, that he failed to 
find the nuptial rhyme, is now the "fixed fact. 91 That 
he strove ardently in his early manhood to find her is 
also a fact, although in his bachelor days he was wary 
of talk about it and sometimes slow to admit it. It 
was his fortune to meet many interesting women, 
some of them gifted, some divinely fair, but it was 
not his fortune to meet "the right woman." And if it 
be true, as a certain philosopher has said, that the 
best works proceed from unmarried or childless men, 
perhaps it was Destiny's design he should not meet her. 
When collecting poems for his first book — then a man 
of three-and-thirty years — he reached the conclusion 
that celibacy was to be his lot and ever afterward 
stoutly affirmed that his fate was inexorably decreed, 
sometimes woefully signing himself, "Yours, Fate & 
283 



284 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Co." It was tragic, but he realized that, should he 
find the "right woman," she would fail to find in him 
the "right man." He "put a washer on his affections," 
as he phrased it, and lodged in his bosom an old saying 
from Thales, the answer to the question when genius 
should marry: A young genius, not yet; an elder 
genius, not at all, 

"I know of nothing," said John Fitch, the 
inventor, "so perplexing and vexatious to a man 
of feelings as a turbulent wife and steamboat 
building. For one man to be teased with both 
is to be looked upon as the most unfortunate man 
in the world." Riley was aware that the vexation is 
the same in poem building, but he was not so ungallant 
as to lay all the blame for domestic infelicity at the 
door of the wife. As he saw it, Fitch was at fault for 
going into partnership with a woman that did not 
rhyme with him. 

"The highest compliment I can pay to a woman," 
said Riley, at the age of fifty, — answering a wise and 
beautiful married woman who was curious to know 
why he had not married — "the highest compliment I 
can pay to a woman is not to marry her." He pain- 
fully realized then, as he did not when a lover, that 
he was, by temperament, at least, disqualified for the 
obligations of matrimony. 

After he had settled down to hard literary work in 
Indianapolis, he wrote in a letter to a woman writer: 
"The season has been one long carnival of enjoyment. 
The city has been thronged with peerless maidens from 
all quarters of the globe, and even as I write, a semi- 
circle of them lies at my feet 'like a rainbow fallen on 
the grass,' all wanting me to fly with them and be their 
own. But I am an ambitious sort of prince and shall 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 285 

not fly, having registered a vow to wed only an angel 
without fleck or flaw of earthly imperfection and with 
a pair of snowy wings 'leven feet from tip to tip." 

If peradventure his thought wandered to marriage, 
it was never with the serious consideration of former 
years. Like the sailor in 'Tales of the Ocean," who in 
fancy was transported to the side of his Nancy Flan- 
ders, he was suddenly disturbed in his dream of 
"bridal raptures" by the gruff call of the captain : "All 
hands ahoy!" — and as the sailor took to his ropes, so 
the poet took to his pencil. 

It should be borne in mind that a poet is human — 
so human that he is likely to have many sweethearts. 
Like those of other men, his love affairs may be the 
subject of humorous or serious comment. Specula- 
tions about them may even be beneficial. His tender 
passions, his attachments and endearments may seem 
sacred, but they should not be wholly outside the pale 
of public consideration, since they belong to the world 
of joys and sorrows. Wherever literature has lived, 
woman has so impressed her beauty and character on 
the heart of the poet that all aspects of nature — the 
stars and the clouds, the hills and the trees and the 
motions of the sea — have been to him as mirrors and 
heralds of her luster and love. It seems superfluous to 
add that she sustains a vital relation to the production 
of verse. 

In that period of visions and dreams, those intricate 
years of the seventies, a new love was a great event for 
the Argonaut; 

"The world was divided into two parts — 
Where his sweetheart was, and where she was not." 

He would experience a few hours or weeks — seldom 



286 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

longer — in dreaming the happy hours away, and then 
the Fates would afflict him with the woe of hapless love. 
Often a rival would appear. "Our young friend, 
J. W. Riley," said a county paper local, "has a poem 
on 'The Lost Kiss.' That kiss was lost over in Sugar 
Creek township, and we know the young man who 
found it." Often an impassable gulf appeared 
between him and his sweetheart which she could no 
more cross than he. After several ineffectual efforts 
to restore communication he would face the other way 
and, as he said, "wander down the corridors of inclem- 
ency lonesome as a pale daylight moon — 

Ah ! lone as a bard may be ! 
In search of the woman that rhymes with me. 

"In search of what? Of any hand that is no more, 
of any hand that never was, of any touch that might 
have magically changed his life." There is nothing so 
embarrassing as to be a lover, — "nothing so harass- 
ing," said he. "A terrible thing it is, if the girl is not 
in love with you. She will make a football of your 
heart and torment you with anguish from Dan to Beer- 
sheba." Man, he perceived, had weighed the sun; he 
had determined the path of the stars, and the moment 
of an eclipse to the fraction of a second, but he had not 
solved the mystery of love; 

"Its passions will rock thee 
As the storms rock the ravens on high." 

"I tell you," Riley exclaimed, "there is something 
tragically wrong with the married state! Rip Van 
Winkle's fate is not fiction. Little wonder he was 
driven to drink — and the Catskill woods: J love de 
trees — dey keep me from de wind and rain — and dey 
never blows me up" 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 287 

Writing to a county paper of a compositor, a printer 
friend who had married a Greenfield girl, Riley was 
outwardly facetious, but beneath the surface quite seri- 
ous about it. "We know little of the bride," he wrote, 
"other than that she is fair and womanly beyond all 
words ; but as for the compositor — we know him and 
recall with emotions of awe the way he used to tangle 
up our silken sentences and crush and mangle beyond 
all hope of recognition the many prattling puns we in- 
trusted to his care. The manifold inflictions he heaped 
upon us then we bore in mute despair; now we exult, 
for he is wedded to another, and our 'schooner' of de- 
light foameth over — 

My dear young friend, regaled with love, 

With all your heart ablaze, 

Don't think yourself a lucky dog 

For all your married ways ; 

But learn to wear a sober face — 

Be hopeful as you can — 

Tis really quite a serious thing 

To be a married man." 

There was one sweetheart, the "Golden Girl," who 
— since at least a dozen poems cluster round her — 
merits more than casual mention. The young woman 
who could prompt her lover to write such a masterpiece 
as "Fame" is not to be passed lightly by. "Her history," 
to phrase it in Riley's words, "was as strangely sweet 
and sad as any you can find in the pages of romance. 
Her letters evinced a mind far above the common. She 
was a womanly woman. I recall her unaffectedness 
and simplicity with the tenderest emotions." 

She was "a dreamer of dreams," another Mary 
Chitwood, giving expression to her aspiring genius 
in prose, however, instead of verse, living in 



288 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

the woods as "the little singer of Franklin 
County" once lived in seclusion in Indiana. She was 
frail — the roses in her cheeks were omens of a fatal 
malady. She was "one of the beads," she wrote, "in 
that starry circle, that flaming necklace of some kind 
strung together somewhere in great black space." She 
was "a soul sea-blown, that knew not of any harbor, 
one of those unanchored ships," she wrote again when 
trying her fortune in another state, "that 

'Sail to and fro, and then go down 

In unknown seas that none shall know, 

Without one ripple of renown.' " 

With her, into the unknown, went her lover's letters, 
which — to judge from the fragments left — doubtless 
contained some of the loveliest prose he ever wrote. 
Honey, they were, "dripping from the comb," she 
said, "freighted with hope and the brightest bless- 
ings ever dropped carelessly out of Angel fingers upon 
this earth; they are the sparkling gems that adorn and 
diadem my life with happiness." 

Riley's dream of the "Golden Girl," could it be de- 
picted in words, would read like some legend of the 
tender passion in a Forest of Love. He was another 
Orlando, hanging verses on the trees for his Rosalind, 
although her temple of the wood was some five hundred 
miles away. The trees were books and she was to read 
them. And as usual there were not wanting Touch- 
stones to mock his effusions, to say that poets are 
capricious, that lovers are given to poetry, and so on. 
The first word about her came from the lovable Graphic 
Chum, James McClanahan. Although he and Riley had 
dissolved partnership in sign-painting, they had not dis- 
solved their friendship. When on the road, McClana- 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 289 

han continued to write of new discoveries. "I have 
found a golden girl," he said, on one of his return trips 
to Indiana, "and I have brought you her beautiful 
hand" (taking a tin-type picture of her hand from his 
pocket) . "She loves art and poetry ; she writes stories ; 
and if she writes you I want you to answer with your 
best. She deserves Literary friends/ 1 He went on to tell 
of her other gifts, how she could play the piano, guitar, 
harp and violin. He talked about her beauty — and her 
suitors, but did not tell that he was one of them. 

McCIanahan had first met her at Black River Falls, 
Wisconsin, just before her decision to seek health in the 
pine region. One day after acquaintance had ripened 
into friendship, when genius was the subject of their 
talk, he said, "I want you to know a friend of mine in 
Greenfield, Indiana, Whitcomb Riley. He is a coming 
man in the literary field. I love him better to-day than 
any one in the world except my mother. He is my 
ideal: he is the whitest man on earth." He then read 
to her several Riley poems. Such praise did not fall 
lightly on the heart of the "Golden Girl." 

"How is it you woo?" asks Riley in a poem: j 

"How is it you woo and you win? 
Why, to answer you true — the first thing that you do 
Is to simply, my dearest — begin." 

So they began, and one result, to say nothing of love, 
was a correspondence that was as thought-sparkling as 
it was tender and beautiful. The "Golden Girl" was 
alone with her mother, young sister, and stepfather in 
the Black River pinery. Though ill, she was ambitious. 
She had written a story when sixteen, and the literary 
impulse was strong in her. Riley thought of her as a 
lonely wild-flower singing and sorrowing with wood- 



290 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

warblers among the giant trees. He sent her a waif 
of his Grub Street days, "A Poet's Wooing," to find out 
whether she was "sharper than an eastern wind," and 
whether he was to march from her or march to her. 
His chief desire was to cheer her in her loneliness. 
Other letters were written to that end. 

"What can I do to make you glad— * 
As glad as glad can be, 
Till your clear eyes seem 
Like the rays that gleam 
And glint through a dew-decked tree?" 

One letter was "filled with the most cheerful ideas 
he could express." He drew grotesque pictures with 
silly dialogues beneath, representing experiences on the 
road with the Graphic Company and "Standard Reme- 
dies." He said "funny things till tears of laughter rose 
to her eyelids." She was "prostrated with the sense 
of hilarity." When several letters had passed, he fell 
in love — in love with an ideal ; a creature of his imagi- 
nation ; "an echo of his heart" : 

"And, like a lily on the river floating, 
She shone upon the river of his thoughts." 

Truly, as Riley saw her in his dream, the "Golden 
Girl" was — as Longfellow has it — "the creature of his 
imagination." The woman did not live who could meet 
the requirements of that dream. Often he saw her 
floating in her birch bark canoe on Black River. The 
thought of her quickened his numbers. "It is as easy to 
write verse," he wrote, "as for the ripples of the river 
• to prattle." He longed to see the light of her smile, 

"To peer in her eyes as a diver might 
Peer in the sea ere he leaps outright — 
Catch his breath, with a glance above, 
And drop full-length in the depths of love." 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 291 

It was a versatile correspondence, in which their 
hopes and fears, their perceptions, fancies and 
witticisms ranged from visions of fortune and 
fame down to their weight and age. (She, light as a 
leaf, "possessed the proud dignity of ninety pounds"; 
he, one hundred and ten ; she was twenty years old; he, 
twenty-six.) As interest in her deepened, Riley flat- 
tered himself that he had found "that golden fleece, a 
woman's love." And he had, but Destiny denied him 
the joy of taking it to his own cottage — not the dream 
of it, however, which he afterward included in "Ike 
Walton's Prayer" — 

"Let but a little hut be mine 
Where at the hearthstone I may hear 
The cricket sing 
And have the shine 
Of one glad woman's eyes to make 
For my poor sake, 
Our simple home a place divine; — 
Just the wee cot — the cricket's chirr — i 
Love, and the smiling face of her." 

"Dame Durden" and "My Little Woman," he called 
her, while she smiled at his pleasantry and returned 
with "My King Harold" and "My Little Man," lovingly 
twitting him on the poverty of his "Graphic" days: 

"Blessings on thee, Little Man, — 
Barefoot Bard with cheek of tan, 
Run to Love and Nature's store, 
And go barefoot nevermore." 

The clever "Little Woman" had definite opinions on 
good blood and the importance of worthy ancestors. 
She was "proud of the rich old southern blood in her 
veins — proud that she could trace her forefathers back 
hundreds of years and find honor, riches and fame." 



292 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

She had the artistic temperament. "We are kindred 
spirits," she wrote, — "said kinship exposed and ex- 
plained or money refunded." She swept cobwebs from 
the "Little Man's" mind: 

"Little old woman, and whither so high? — • 
To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky." 

She signally influenced Riley in his decision to quit 
the law. The law office was the "Growlery." She 
charged him "to abandon it and nail up the door." It 
was tragic for genius such as he possessed "to be lost 
in the mountains of Wiglomeration." In February, 
1876, soon after he had entered his father's office the 
second time, she contributed a little sarcasm with her 
love. "And you are going to be a lawyer," she wrote, 
"and a famous one, too, I'll be bound ! — Why, how con- 
venient. When I want a divorce you will be my coun- 
sel, tell all kinds of stories about my husband's vil- 
lainy, pound your fist on a big book, and rumple up your 
hair until the jury quails before the breeze of eloquence 
which fairly takes them off their feet." 

Riley was in happy valley when he could give the 
"Golden Girl" charming names. Reflecting on "the 
many hearts she had touched and awakened and the ad- 
miration and love she had won," he thought of her as 
the lovely Esther Summerson of Bleak House. "I have 
a new name for you," he wrote, "Dame Durden, and I 
want you for my sake as well as your own to read the 
book." One passage in it expressed his sentiment as 
to what a woman should be : "When a young lady is 
as mild as she is game, and is game as she is mild, that 
is all I ask, and more than I expect. Then she becomes 
a Queen, and that is about what you are." 

In the spring of 1876 Riley had suffered from her 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 293 

long silence. One might explain her silence by citing 
her love for McClanahan, provided Riley did not know 
of her love. But he did know of it although he was 
not aware that she loved his friend deeply. She was 
still writing Riley in the spirit of a literary correspond- 
ence, and did not then know what she sorrowfully real- 
ized a few weeks later, that the Graphic Chum was a 
capricious young man, blown hither and thither by baf- 
fling winds. Si rue 1872 he and Riley had been cruising 
on a choppy sea. The ( aprice in each had been about 
equally distributed. Riley was soon to find a moorage. 
The lovable chum, alas! was never to find one. The 
Fates tangled his f< et in a skein of ill-fortune and held 
them in it to the end. In answer to the letter about her 
silence, the girl in the pine woods assured him of her 
pride in the possession of his friendship. He was her 
"dear old phi In opher/ 1 to be so patient with her. "It 
is a good thing I am a woman," she wrote, "for if I 
had to ho a man I'd want to be Riley. You belong to 
us," — referring to her love for the Graphic Chum. "I 
love you next to him, he loves you next to me, and you 
love me after him, and we all love each other. Bless 
me, what a cobweb! 'Amo, Amas, Amat — Amamus, 
Amafis, A mi' at.' So you have discovered me in a sea 
of fiction. To know that one has been discovered, that 
one's dear old friend has formed an opinion at last, 
and yet be unable to know what it is, because of not 
having read Bleak House. Too bad. Of course I shall 
read the book, but my curiosity is aroused ; tell me about 
her. I wonder if Dickens affects you as he affects me. 
Do his books ever make you feel hungry? 

"You are very strange. In your bitter, bitter moods 
I understand you and know you best. Ah, don't I know 
what they are? How I have fought and fought, bat- 



294 JAMES WHTTCOMB RILEY 

tling all alone till I knew that they made me older than 
the years of time. You can't imagine the joy with 
which I read your words. Your letters are like a mag- 
netic battery. I thank you for the poems. They are 
beautiful." 

Writing him at another time, her hands trembled as 
she read his words. His earnestness touched her. She 
smiled with tears in her eyes to read of the "Higher 
Power than ours discovering us to each other." He 
was like a book whose mysteries would not promptly 
unravel at her bidding. Little by little she followed the 
thread until she grasped his meaning. "There is a 
beautiful song," she wrote, " 'If My Wishes Come 
True.' Maybe you know it. Learn it and remember 
Dame Durden when you sing it." Then she discovered 
to him some of her own moods and confessed to many 
errors of her way. 

He did not learn the song, but, in part, wrote 
one of his own, "When My Dreams Come True" — 
or rather, in imagination, made her the author 
of it. The "Little Woman" must not be cast down be- 
cause of manifold transgressions; she must not sink 
beneath any weight of woe. Two lines were written 
expressly to lighten her discouragement: 

"The blossom in the blackest mold is kindlier to the eye 
Than any lily born of pride that looms against the sky." 

Commenting on the lines and their origin, at a later 
period, Myron Reed observed that the nectar of song 
is distilled from the dews of sorrow. "Your well fed, 
nicely groomed poet," said he, "can not write a sons 
of the people, by the people, and for the people. There 
must have been mud about the roots of a pond lily." 

In June (187G) a letter came and she ran to the pine 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 295 

woods to read it — 'trembling like a girl of sixteen." 
She wanted to be alone* to thank God over and over for 
her Robin Adair. He had written 'The Silent Victors" 
in the law office, and by invitation of a committee had 
read it at Newcastle on the afternoon of Memorial 
Day— 

"What me< d of tribute can the poet pay 
The Soldiers, but to trail the ivy-vine 

Of idle rhyme above their graves to-day?" 

In imagination Bhe had Been the dusty twenty miles 
he bad traveled to N tie — he had ridden half-way 

OB horseback and had walked the remainder. And she 
had Been the beautiful oak grove in the cemetery where 
the exercises were held, where the young poet for the 
first time had stepped before the public on a national 
holiday. She had heard the band play the sweet varia- 
tions of the old Scottish air, 

"Had Been his trembling hand — i 
Tears in his eyelids stand 
To greet his native land — 
Robin Adair." 

"I am so proud of you — my hero," she wrote; "you 
are worthy the laurels you have won, and more, from 
the stingy world. Had I my way the w T orld would be a 
flower garden. Fragrant blossoms would pave the 
pathway your willing feet would tread to fame. How 
I wish I might have been present to witness your suc- 
cess! There would have been one soul of that crowd 
whose joy would have reached your own and whispered 
the words I could not speak. God has given you gifts 
He bestows on few of His children. Your words go 
straight to the heart. I am proud and happy in your 
love." 



296 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"If I were not so wretchedly impecunious," Riley 
wrote in November, 1876, "I would come to you in the 
disguise of a rich uncle from the golden Americas." 
In the absence of pounds sterling he sent a letter. 
Dear old Uncle Sam, with "the precious mite of a three- 
cent stamp had made communication of lovers possible." 
Referring to a new name he had given her, he said, 
"There is something crisp and hearty about it. I feel 
your presence with me, and will all winter. 

"I sent to Longfellow an imitation of his own style 
entitled 'In the Dark,' and after the method of what I 
consider his finest poem, 'The Day is Done.' Are you 
familiar with it? If not look it up. When you find it, 
study it closely, and then compare my verses with it, 
and see if they are not really a clever imitation in lan- 
guage, theme, similes, and so forth. I will send you the 
poem when it appears ; I know you will like it, for you 
were in my mind all the time I was composing it, and 
I have no doubt that truant soul of yours was with my 
own." 

As was the rage in those old days of love, there was 
an ample exchange of photographs and tin-types. Like 
other poets, Riley sent verse with his portrait, the 
"ghost of a face," said he, in "Lines in a Letter En- 
closing a Picture." There went with them also many 
cheery words for the girl with the hectic bloom on her 
cheek : — 

"I send you the shadowy ghost of a face 
To haunt you forever — with eyes 
That look in your own with the tenderest grace 
Affectionate art can devise ; 
And had they the power to sparkle and speak 
In the spirit of smiles and tears, 
The rainbow of love would illumine your cheek 
And banish the gloom that appears. 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 297 

"The lips would unlock with the key of a kiss 
And the jewels of speech would confess 
A treasure of love that is richer than this 
Poor pencil of mine may express; 
O sweeter than bliss were the whispering things 
I'd breathe, and your answering sighs 
Would hold Cupid on quivering wings 
In a pause of exultant surprise. " 

In one letter she enclosed the picture of her beauti- 
ful hand holding a fan, "I send you the shadow of my 
hand," she wrote; "it was made on a wager, one day in 
1875." Riley had seen the picture, a tin-type (it will be 
remembered), the previous summer when he and Mc- 
Clanahan had raved over its beauty. Interest in it had 
not diminished. She had twined a ribbon and a tress of 
her brown hair around it. Hifl chum could never say 
enough about the beauty of her hair. Prior to receiv- 
ing her letter, Riley had written his poem, "Her Beau- 
tiful Hands." He had kept the incident of its origin 
a secret; indeed, throughout life it pleased his fancy 
to keep it locked in "the round-tower of his heart." It 
was the hand of his ideal : 

"Marvelous — wonderful — beautiful hands ! 
They can coax roses to bloom in the strands 
Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine, 
Under mysterious touches of thine 
Into such knots as entangle the soul 
And fetter the heart under such a control 
As only the strength of my love understands — 
My passionate love for your beautiful hands." 

The lock of hair was kept among manuscripts in his 
trunk. Once afterward when rummaging among by- 
gones he chanced to see this "wisp of sunshine," as he 
called it. As the girl of the pine woods had married 
his adorable chum— for .that, after all, was the way it 



298 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

happened — there came the suggestion for a poem, 
"A Tress of Hair": 

"Her features — keep them fair, 
Dear Lord, but let her lips not quite forget 
The love they kindled once is gilding yet 

This tress of hair." 

A British poet sings of the unsolved riddle of exist- 
ence — why the bird pipes in the woods — why the owl 
sends down the twilight — why the rocks stand still — • 
why the clouds fly — why the oak groans — why the wil- 
lows sigh? 

"How you are you? Why I am I? 
Who will riddle me the how and the why?" 

Such is the quandary that rises in the mind when one 
reflects on the poet-lover and the "Golden Girl." Why 
should their love end in the sad — the sweet — the 
strange No More? At first he suffered from her silence, 
then she suffered from his silence, and then their 
suffering was mutual. Out of that suffering came sev- 
eral poems — three that were strangely sad and sadly 
sweet — "Say Something to Me" — "An Empty Song"-— < 
and "Song of Parting." 

"The air is full of tender prophecy," she wrote one 
Sunday evening. " 'Say Something to Me' went straight 
to my heart and found an answering thrill for all the 
pleading tenderness of the words your gracious pencil 
dropped, though my lips could not speak. I cried when 
I read it, as once I cried in the darkness that veiled our 
clasped hands and passion-burdened eyes from the 
world when you whispered to me, 'If I Should Die To- 
night.' You remember it — the darkness that had grown 
compassionate and pitiful, and veiled the whole world 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 299 

in gloom to give us an hour of happiness more bright 
than hour of daylight ever knew, an hour 

'In which the heavy and the weary weight 
Of all this unintelligible world 
Was lighted/ 

"I can find no words to tell you of my love, how I 
treasure your lightest word, for my stumbling pencil 
is devoid of all the subtle power that hangs about your 
own. I can not trace the thoughts that wake into newer 
life at your touch, and set my happy answering heart 
aglow, for before my stupid fingers have well begun 
their task, other and yet other thoughts have over- 
thrown the kingdom of the first and left me but the 
sturdy words, I Love You. Tell me — My Prophet — is 
that future surely coming to us, whose brilliancy fell 
in a golden glory that covered up all the gloom on that 
'day of pure gold' of which you write? — ■ 

'Something in our eyes made tears to glisten ; 
But they were not sad.' " 

Then followed "An Empty Song." As signified in 
the poem, she was the sun of his heart but she could 
not shine on both sides of it. He might have said as 
he did say in another poem that 

"She was the dazzling Shine— I, the dark Shade— 
And we did mingle like to these, and thus, 

Together, made 
The perfect summer, pure and glorious." 

But there was a shadow of the heart, "issue of its 
own substance," he phrased it, which she could not 
lighten. Her radiance, all-powerful in beauty and love, 
could not scatter the night of the soul. 

And then the "Song of Parting." The full signifi- 



300 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

cance of the poem is seen in the fact that it was, in 
spirit, a joint production; the lover speaks in the first 
and second stanzas, the "Badger Girl," as he sometimes 
called his sweetheart, in the last. In the original there 
are such lines as — 

"Do not weep — for tears are vain — ? 
Little mists of foolish rain. 

"Say farewell, and let me go — ■ 
Since the Fates have planned 
That your love can only grow 
In a richer land." 

Before we say farewell, the "Badger Girl" shall have 
a few words more. She shall tell a little more clearly, 
though painfully, her own story. We have her lover's 
story in his poems. Referring to the shadow on his 
heart, and to the poems of that period, Riley said, "I 
wrote with my heart's own blood." He was not alone 
in his despair. She, too, wrote with her heart's own 
blood. Surely she knew herself better than her lover 
or any one else knew her. 

At their first meeting there were of course revela- 
tions for each, which the poor power of letters had 
failed to impart. Riley deftly concealed his sadness at 
the thought of her declining health. "She was fragile 
as a lily," he said, "delicate as a snowdrop." But there 
were other considerations besides health. 

"Each had another life they longed to meet 
Without which life, their own were incomplete." 

The meeting did not reveal that other life. Whether 
it would have been revealed had her health been re- 
stored is mere conjecture. There was hope of her 
recovery, but it was hope with a shadow. One thing 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 301 

is clear, if we accept the testimony of each, their meet- 
ing did not diminish their love. They talked of the 
paths into which their feet had strayed, how they had 
walked on and on, dreaming, hoping that "one little 
corner of the curtain that hid the future from their 
eyes would lift and discover to each the life he longed 
to live. God's mysterious hand had led them and was 
still to lead them on." 

Henceforth their letters were candid to a degree that 
excites sympathy. "Will you understand me I won- 
der," the lover wrote some few weeks later, "if I tell 
you that I fear I am going to make you unhappy? Will 
you understand me when I tell you that, should the 
premonition prove true, your unhappiness would be 
my own? I fear you never will understand just what 
a strange paradox I am. I hardly know myself. But 
you must not think too kindly of me. Not that I do 
not deserve love, but rather because all the affection I 
can offer in return is as vain as it is wild and fervid. 
If I could take your hand and hold it as I say these 
words, you would know how deeply sad and earnest 
and most truthful I am in this belief. My life has been 
made up of disappointments and despairs. This is no 
fancy with me. It is bitter, bitter truth. I have 
learned to bear it well. I have learned to expect but 
little else. I ache, but I grope on smiling in the dark. 
You are not strong as I am strong. Your tears would 
overflow your path and sweep you back. And you must 
not know what I endure. God made you to be glad; 
so you must not lean too far out of the sunshine to 
help me. I am not wholly selfish as I struggle down 
here in the gloom, but I am tired and so worn I can 
but grasp your hand if proffered— only don't— don't. 
Just hail me from the brink with cheery words. That 



302 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

will be best for you — and as for me — why, I will be 
stronger knowing I have dragged no bright hopes 
down with my poor drowning ones. My whole being 
goes out from me, and I am calling to you through the 
great distance that divides us. Do you hear? God 
bless you, little girl, and keep you always glad as you 
are good. You must write me at once. I dream now 
that your face is drooped a little, and I lift it with my 
hand, and it is bright and beautiful. So, set it heaven- 
ward and where the sunlight falls, and I will see its 
glancing smiles flash back, and that will help me more 
than words will say." 

"There is an ache in your heart," Riley wrote again, 
"which can never be conquered or tamed down. Like a 
prisoned bird, it beats its wings against the bars and 
makes your life a discord." He had discord in his own 
life; to wed that to more discord meant disaster that 
was not all personal. He would shield his sweetheart 
from such a destiny. He could say with the hapless 
Poe, "Toward you there is no room in my soul for any 
other sentiment than devotion. It is fate only which I 
accuse. It is my own unhappy nature." 

"0, how right you are," she answered ; "I shiver with 
the jarring sense of discord as I write. I have so many 
faults, so much pride ; yet I must be earnest with you ; 
I must say all — if you hate me for it. 

I am digging my warm heart 
Till I find its coldest part ; 
I am digging wide and low, 
Farther than a spade can go. 

I am different, so different from your ideal, your 'Pearl 
of Pearls.' One day I am satisfied with all the world 
and want to take it to my arms and caress it — the next, 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 303 

I feel sure it is full of injustice and misery underneath 
its smiling exterior, and I descend into my ice-house of 
rebellion. Then I listen to 'soft nothings' with radiant 
face and sparkling eyes, smile into faces that smile 
down into my own, do a happy careless laugh to perfec- 
tion, when flat things are said in the way of compliment 
that smack of having been committed to memory in 
some long ago when some one fairer than I had in- 
spired their utterance; and then a miserable conceit 
takes hold of me like death and I say to myself, 'I am 
in shallow water and must wade because these people 
know no deeper soundings' — and I pity them, I who so 
much need forbearance myself." 

"I seem not to make you understand me," she writes 
at another time. "My life is empty and purposeless or 
has been — and yet underneath it all there pulses a 
great, strong, unconquerable passion for something 
higher and better, something that your words make me 
dare hope is almost within my reach. A sense there is 
of being cramped into a narrower space of thought and 
action than God intended. A numbness, too, and un- 
consciousness and inability to use with intrepidity the 
few gifts I might have had ; but they have so long lain 
dormant that they are useless and withered as a limb 
long bandaged from the air and sunshine. I dread to 
be misunderstood. I have a horror of miscellaneous 
pity. But you seem to understand me better than the 
rest; you encourage me to think that this element of 
— well, I can not name it — this inside kernel, this 
knaggy knarl would have made me infinitely more 
worthy of you had I been rightly, properly kneaded in 
the first place, for I believe I was put together like a 
Chinese puzzle and am at present wrong-side-out or up- 



304 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

side-down or t'other-side-to and need but some skillful 
hand that understands the machinery to put me right. 
I think there is a secret spring, if one could only find 
it, that if suddenly touched would immediately set me 
straight, like a stove-pipe hat, — the theatre hat, made 
of springs, don't you know. You know what I mean — 
you have seen them. 

"I know you would not give me hope and aspirations 
if you imagined they would come to naught. I can but 
fresh courage take from your words and honest convic- 
tions. Do not wonder that my hand trembles as I 
write, that my heart bounds again with joy — a great 
joy that you think me capable of something better than 
the poor fluttering moth that I seem to be." 

It is noteworthy that the Little Woman first reached 
the conviction that they could never marry. Usually 
insight and foresight are attributed to man. He is wis- 
dom. Woman is love. But love is wisdom also when 
lodged in the heart of a Dame Durden. By combining 
wisdom and love, Dickens made her one of the ador- 
able women of fiction — and it was lovingly complimen- 
tary in Riley to give his sweetheart the name : 

"My Little Woman, of you I sing 
With a fervor all divine." 

It was said at the beginning of the chapter, that 
Riley was in love with an ideal. It may now be said 
that there was an uncommon measure of the ideal in 
the "Golden Girl," and that her influence like an angelic 
presence remained with the poet through the "ten pro- 
lific years" that succeeded their correspondence — the 
decade that saw the light dawn on his best work. 

"Do you suppose I would spoil my ideal by getting 
married?" The remark is attributed to Frances Wil- 




Her Beautiful Hand 
From a tintype taken when the Golden Girl was nineteen. 
Inspiration for the poem : "Her Beautiful Hands" 




When the Poet Was Twenty-five 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 305 

lard. Whatever may be said of its authenticity, the 
thought was certainly not far from the heart of the 
"Golden Girl" when she penned to Riley the following : 

"My Dear Friend, the dearest friend I have on earth, 
believe me when I tell you your letter has touched me 
deeper than I have words to express. I am stretching 
my hands out to you. Take them, crush them till the 
pain deadens the terrible anguish and pain at my heart. 
I am coming to you one moment — 

'One moment that I may forget 
The trials waiting for me yet.' 
There is a great, yawning dark gulf between us — a 
hopeless one. You know not, you can not, dare to guess 
it nor can I tell you more now. We are like children 
groping in the dark. It is as impossible to bridge the 
gulf or in any way lessen the distance, as it is for me 
to stifle the moan that rises to my lips when I think of 
it. That gulf can never be crossed. Mine is the fault, 
mine alone. I cross to this side, but you can not 
follow." 

"A brave soul is a thing all things serve," she quotes 
in another letter and then goes on to marvel at a strange 
world, hardly knowing what to make of it, or herself, 
or her lover, or any one. God had some special work 
for her when He created her, but finding some other 
hands perhaps more willing, He left her with a half- 
awakened consciousness of what she had lost — no object 
in life to bid her clamber up the long hill whose rugged 
steeps then echoed with the footsteps of her lover, for 
"you," to use her own words, "are slowly, surely making 
your way with noble energy to the top of the mountain. 
As you pass me on the path that glitters with the reflex 
of tears rained from many weary eyes that weep no 
more forever, you recognize the task before you as you 
never did before, perhaps, and pity me as I sit silent, 



306 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

discouraged, mastered by the first obstacle at the foot 
of the hill." 

Fragile — aimless and hopeless as she thought, per- 
haps after all her influence would follow him. What 
could he do, she once asked, without the heart of 
woman? Her answer to her own question was signifi- 
cant. 

"What could he do indeed ? A weak, white girl 
Held all his heartstrings in her small white hands ; 
His hopes, and power, and majesty were hers, 
And not his own." 

Feeling thus, a new thought was born in her heart — a 
thought that God had meant one day to create her and 
her lover for each other. "To you," she wrote, "God 
gave a noble manhood, genius to love and appreciate 
His holy handiwork, and having well in mind the 
woman He should send you by and by to make your 
earth a heaven, He gave you a heart as gentle and 
kindly as ever allotted to earth's creatures, and set you 
pure and stainless to await my coming. 

"Alas! some envious hand sullied the brightness of 
the picture and in punishment God sent me unfinished, 
far away from you into the maelstrom of the world, and 
left me groping blindly, longing for the treasure I had 
lost yet never known. And a dreary sense of the same 
bitter loss makes you long for 'the one woman on earth' 
— makes you grieve for the incompleteness of her who 
should have been your ideal, the imperfection of the 
gem that you hoped to find perfect. God sent us apart 
and has kept us apart. Will we ever meet? I am sorry 
for you, sorry for myself. I can love you — love you as 
no mortal yet has loved you when I remember all I 
might have been for your sake — love you with a passion 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 307 

God has no time to tone down." With this she asks of 
her lover in a closing paragraph, if he had read the 
Two Destinies, and then signs herself, "Yours always." 

In a brief note a few days later, she fears the clouds 
she and her lover thought would drop in dew might 
scatter snow. She wished him to know with what a 
masterly hand he had kindled her "into fire — heap of 
ashes that she was — a fire, however, inseparable in its 
nature from herself, quickening nothing, lighting noth- 
ing, doing no service, idly burning away." 

"A sad story," her friends were heard to say, and 
doubtless others who read it for the first time will say 
the same. But let them not rue it as an exceptional 
fate. True love leads over a rough and thorny way. 

Who believes that the influence of this gifted being 
ended with death? — she who "could lay her fevered 
cheek against the weeping window pane, close her eyes, 
and hear in the dripping rain the tread of trembling 
fairy feet on the roof?" — she 

"Who felt sometimes the wish across the mind 
Rush like a rocket tearing up the skies?" 

Dear Little Woman ! the fire of your love is still burning 
— but not idly burning. Your lover jeweled songs with 
your tears. The clouds did after all drop dew. 

"From his flying quill there dripped 
Such music on his manuscript 
That they who listen to his words 
May close their eyes and dream the birds 
Are twittering on every hand 
A language they can understand." 

By smiting upon the chords of the poet's heart with 
might, the Little Woman contributed to literature the 
immortal "Fame," according to his father, the greatest 



308 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

poem the son ever wrote. Alas, for the Little Woman ! 
it did not augur fame for her. 

If the reader desires to know how the "Golden Girl's" 
courtship ended historically, he will find it in a closing 
chapter of Bleak House, with a little shade to color it 
from Enoch Arden. After a grievous misunderstand- 
ing, McClanahan, her former love, "the wreckless, lov- 
able boy with the good heart and extravagant ideas," 
returned and made amends for his absence and seem- 
ing neglect. Unlike the Tennysonian narrative, she 
had not married in the meantime, although she had 
been ardently loved by Riley. True to what befell in 
Bleak House, Riley assumed the role of the Guardian, 
restored his friend to the old place in her love, and 
consented to their wedding, "soothingly, like the gentle 
rustling of the leaves; genially, like the ripening 
weather; radiantly and beneficently, like the sun- 
shine." So they were wed. 

"And merrily rang the bells, 
And merrily ran the years," 

two transient, happy years, a steady decline in the 
bride's health — and then a grave. 

There was truly a song in the parting. All that the 
future could bestow was welcome now. That Riley 
worshiped the fair hand seemed for a moment a mis- 
take — and thus the poem "Say Farewell and Let Me 
Go." But it was not a life-long good-by. There 
was but one remove from her to the Muse of 
Poesy. Indeed, as the years came with their opulence 
of joy and sorrow, the memory of her became a sacred 
presence. When he and his friend McClanahan talked 
of her, there was pathos in his voice that others never 
heard and few, had they heard, could understand. The 
memory of her kept him from "a selfish grave." . It was 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 309 

"The one bright thing to save 
His youthful life in the wilds of Time." 

The distance between her and the Muse of Song was so 
slight that he often — more seriously than his friends 
suspected- — referred to his favorite goddess as the 
Little Woman, styling himself the Little Man beside 
her in his bark, on their poetic way. The fates had 
woven her into the warp and woof of his destiny. She 
was the "golden-haired, seraphic child," whose flying 
form was ever plying between his "little boat" and the 
driving clouds. His own version of the Muse seems a 
dancing phantom. Nevertheless, she was the Queen 
of "the rosebud garden of girls." She was the "beau- 
tiful immortal figure," she was the "Empress of his 
listening Soul," 

"The Parian phantomette, with head atip 
And twinkling fingers dusting down the dews" 

that glittered on the leaves of simple things, — he, the 
wooing Jucklet standing knee-deep in the grass, waiting 
for the fragrant shower. 

Thinking to disarm the critics, Riley called his por- 
trait of the Muse a monstrosity of rhyme, but time has 
long since relieved it of that imputation. "The phantom 
left me at sea," said he a score of years after he had 
come under the mesmeric spell. "After I had written 
the lines they worried me a great deal. I did not fully 
comprehend them then, nor do I now." In "An Adjust- 
able Lunatic" where the lines appear, he says his "mind 
was steeped in dreamy languor, and yet peopled with a 
thousand shadowy fancies that came from chaotic 
hiding-places and mingled in a revelry of such riotous 
extravagance it seemed a holiday of phantom thought." 
The music of the Muse rippled mystically from her 
harp. It was the despair of mortals— 



310 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

. . . . "the pulse of invoiced melodies 

Timing the raptured sense to some refrain 

That knows nor words, nor rhymes, nor euphonies." 

It belonged to that higher region of poetry of which 
Longfellow talked when Riley called to see him at the 
Craigie Mansion. "It is too delicate," said Longfel- 
low, "for the emotions and aspirations of the human 
heart — too fragile for the touch of analysis. The 
thought like the exquisite odor of a flower, losing all 
palpable embodiment, is veiled and often lost in the 
mist of its own spiritual loveliness." 

It was just this impalpable something that Riley saw 
as in a trance or dream but could not express. Some- 
where, with unseen wings brushing past him, a lawn 
bespangled with flowers unrolled beneath his feet. On 
his ear fell a storm of gusty music, 

"And when at last it lulled and died, 
I stood aghast and terrified. 
I shuddered and shut my eyes, 
And still could see and feel aware 
Some mystic presence waited there; 
And staring with a dazed surprise, 
I saw a creature so divine 
That never subtle thought of mine 
May reproduce to inner sight 
So fair a vision of delight. 

"A syllable of dew that drips 
From out a lily's laughing lips 
Could not be sweeter than the word 
I listened to, yet never heard. — 
For, oh, the woman hiding there 
Within the shadows of her hair, 
Spake to me in an undertone 
So delicate, my soul alone 
But understood it as a moan 
Of some weak melody of wind 
A heavenward breeze had left behind." 



THE GOLDEN GIRL 311 

There was a tracery of trees in the sky near the horizon 
toward which the dreamer gazed, a background of 
dusky verdure for the vision of womanly loveliness that 
stood beautiful and statuesque before it. She loomed 
there in the twilight as if the spirit-hand of Angelo 
had chiseled her to life complete : — 

"And I grew jealous of the dusk, 
To see it softly touch her face, 
As lover-like with fond embrace 
It folded round her like a husk: 
But when the glitter of her hand, 
Like wasted glory beckoned me, 
My eyes grew blurred and dull and dim— 
My vision failed — I could not see— - 
I could not stir — I could not stand, 
Till quivering in every limb, 
I flung me prone, as though to swim 
The tide of grass whose waves of green 
Went rolling ocean-wide between 
My helpless shipwrecked heart and her 
Who claimed me for a worshiper." 



CHAPTER XV 
LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 

A STOUT champion of scientific thought, whose 
habit was to deal with the elemental truth 
of things, adorns English literature with a 
memorable picture of the game of human life — the 
game which has been played for untold ages, every 
man and woman of us being one of the two players 
in a game of his or her own. "The world is a chess- 
board," he says ; "the pieces are the phenomena of the 
universe, the rules of the game are what we call the 
laws of Nature. The player on the other side — a calm 
strong angel who is playing with us for love as we say 
— is hidden from us. We know that his play is always 
fair, just and patient. But also we know to our cost that 
he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest 
allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, 
the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflow- 
ing generosity with which the strong delight in 
strength. And the one who plays ill is checkmated — 
without haste, but without remorse." 

An inspiring conception, provided one sees it as 
Riley saw it — a thing divine. Without that, clouds and 
mountains, the stars spinning through space were but 
vanishing dust and vapor. Back of physical splendor 
and terror, below, within and above the law of Nature, 
'this side and beyond the Calm Angel, the poet saw 
the sublime miracle of the Infinite All-in-All, of which 
the chessboard of the world is the manifestation. 
312 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 313 

Education is learning the rules of this mighty game 
— man in loving communication with Nature and the 
God of Nature : "the study of men and their ways — the 
fashioning of the affections and of the will," that he 
may live in harmony with universal laws. Not an easy 
task, not now idly dreaming in an empty day. Riley 
has had the vision of his mission: he has chosen a 
passenger for his "little boat," the lively Muse of 
Song. How will he play the mighty game? Some 
have said he played it foolishly, but they say this in 
ignorance of the facts. 

"As in a game ov cards," his friend Josh Billings 
once remarked, "so in the game ov life, we must play 
what iz dealt tew us; and the glory konsists not so 
much in winning as in playing a poor hand well." A 
college training and superior opportunities of culture 
were not dealt to the Poet of the People. Sometimes 
he whined over his lot ; sometimes he talked back. Nev- 
ertheless he became human and lovable. He played 
a poor hand well. 

Among the first things he did after his vision was to 
seek light and counsel from eminent litterateurs — and 
it took courage to do it. Distinguished authors in their 
books had been profitable company, but to approach 
them directly concerning himself was different. Never 
then, and seldom, if ever, in his maturer years, did he 
"run the risk of becoming proud of his powers and 
abilities." He was modest. His timidity was painful. 
To write about genius was to assume that he had 
genius, and of this he was not at all certain. Nor was 
he certain any one could tell him. At the last it was — 
"Trust in Providence and his own efforts." 

Then, too, it was perhaps a burden on older authors 
which young writers should not inflict. It is one of the 



314 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

penalties of eminence, Reynolds had said, to be obliged, 
as a matter of courtesy, to give opinions upon the at- 
tempts of the dull. Mark Twain would not do it. "No," 
he wrote in the old "Galaxy" magazine, where Riley 
first learned to love him, "no, I will not venture any 
opinion whatever as to the literary merit of a young 
writer's productions. The public is the only critic 
whose judgment is worth anything at all. If I honestly 
and conscientiously praise his manuscript, I might thus 
help to inflict a lingering and pitiless bore upon the 
public ; if I honestly and conscientiously condemn it, I 
might thus rob the world of an undeveloped Dickens or 
Shakespeare." 

Writing the eminent for encouragement was the rage 
among aspiring Hoosiers in the seventies. There was 
an occasional skeptic, who considered it a sleeveless 
errand — "whistling jigs to a mile-stone" — but the cur- 
rent sentiment favored it. Aldrich, when a young 
man, had received a letter from Hawthorne warmly 
praising his early poems, and had kept "the pearl of 
great price" among his autographic treasures to the 
end of his days. Mark Twain had been warmly com- 
plimented on his first book, in a letter from Oliver 
Wendell Holmes. Henry George had a letter from John 
Stuart Mill, which sent him to his study and to fame. 
Longfellow had been signally helped at the age of 
eighteen. Jared Sparks had shown him that "his style 
was too ambitious; his thoughts and reflections were 
good, but wanted maturity and betrayed a young 
. writer." 

Among the first of the "rising Hoosiers" to receive 
one of the coveted letters was the Schoolmaster, Lee O. 
Harris. His friends encouraged him. That man was 
a poet, they thought, who — 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 315 

"saw the Morn arise 

Like Venus from a sea of mist, 
And blushes redden all the skies 
When Night and Morning kissed. " 

Authors were certain to take notice of such verse. 
Whittier wrote of the "rhythmical sweetness" in the 
teacher's poems. Trowbridge thought "they showed a 
sufficient mastery of language to warrant obedience to 
any literary impulse." Longfellow liked "Sunset Be- 
hind the Clouds" and suggested a few changes with 
the hope that the young pedagogue would not think him 
hypercritical: "the real merit of the poem made him 
speak frankly." 

Maurice Thompson, more ambitious than the rest, 
sought counsel in foreign lands, and received the fol- 
lowing from Victor Hugo: "Young man, hold your 
head right! The stars are not really in clear water. 
Those are shams. Look up always as you do now. 
Labor Limae — sic itur ad astra. (Labor to the end: 
such is the way to immortality.) I reach across the 
ocean to you. I hope the young men coming after me 
will do strongly what I have feebly begun." 

After a restless period of hesitation and deliberation, 
Riley wrought his courage up to the sticking point. 
That done, the rest was easy. First of all, he would 
write his patron saint — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 
And that was to be expected. "When a boy," he said, 
"I giggled on hearing the name 'Longf ellow' but it soon 
became positively poetical and musical to me." When 
quite a young man he considered it "a liberal education 
for a poet just to read Longfellow." At the poet's 
grave he said, "The touch of his hand was a prayer and 
his speech a blessed psalm." As early as 1868, at young 



316 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Riley's suggestion, the Greenfield Commercial, an ob- 
scure county paper, followed the poet on his tour 
through Europe, there appearing as late as October 
such locals as, "Longfellow at last accounts was doing 
the Paris picture galleries." 

Prior to writing Longfellow, Riley had had the let- 
ter from Donald G. Mitchell about a "very graceful 
poem/' with the accompanying hope that he would 
"not be discouraged from further exercise of his liter- 
ary talent." This was followed with one from the 
Banbury News: "Let me say," wrote the editor, "that 
you are a good writer and a promising one, and bye 
and bye, if you keep on improving as you have, you 
will acquire what is everything to the scribe — fame; 
and this secured your writing will command remunera- 
tion of your own figuring. At the moment it is up-hill 
work. Perseverance is your best ammunition. More 
wounded than killed in the great battle of pen-and- 
ink." 

One "dapperling of comfort" from Lee 0. Harris, 
Riley remembered in love long after the applause of the 
world had become uninteresting. "Dear old friend," 
wrote the Schoolmaster in October, 1876, "and fellow 
convict on the chain gang of phantasy. I have taken 
upon myself the task of trying to find a publisher." 
(Collaborating with B. S. Parker,* the literary 
fledglings were feebly attempting something in book 
form. All three "confessed to two of the oddest infirm- 
ities in the world" : one, that they had no idea of 
time ; the other, that they had no idea of money.) "Un- 
less we do find a publisher," Harris continues, "I do 
not see what we can do. Parker has no money and I 
expect you have about half as much as he has and I 
have less than both of you. Your 'August* is good ; 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 317 

The forest stands in silence, drinking deep 
Its purple wine of shade,' 

was written by a true poet." 

Other testimonials have passed into oblivion, but 
that one stands the test of time. When recalling it, 
Riley was once reminded of what Emma Abbott said 
to her friend Reed. The young singer had been 
stranded on the road and Reed had paid her fare to the 
next town. "Myron Reed," she said, calling at his 
home in the noontide of her fame, "I have come to 
thank you for the ten dollars you loaned me. Ten 
dollars, when one must have it, is worth more than one 
hundred thousand dollars when one does not need it." 
So Riley thought of the little postscript of praise from 
the Schoolmaster. 

Having written two letters to eminent authors, Riley 
was suddenly confronted with the loss of their ad- 
dresses. It was the dawning of his lifelong distress 
over his inability to find things he had so carefully put 
away — "A place for everything," he would repeat when 
hopelessly seeking letters in his desk, "a place for 
everything and everything some place else" 

"I should be handled by the Grand Jury," said he, 
"for not knowing the address of Longfellow." But he 
did not know it; hence the following to the School- 
master, who was then teaching in Lewisville, Indiana : 

Greenfield, November 20, 1876. 
T)p£iy* TTnrri^. 

I intended to take down the addresses of those two 
celebrities while you were here. Will you furnish them, 
please, by mail and any others you may know of? 

I have my letters "calked and primed" and only await 
your kindness. Yours, 

J. W. R. 



318 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

The addresses (answered his Schoolmaster) are, 
Henry W. Longfellow, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and 
John T. Trowbridge, Arlington, Massachusetts. 

Having addressed the envelopes, Riley hastened to 
the post-office. "I approached the letter box with 
trembling," said he, — "held my letter in my hand, hesi- 
tating and turning it over, wondering whether I had 
omitted something or had written something I should 
not write. I had enclosed three poems, 'In the Dark/ 
'A Destiny' (now entitled 'A Dreamer*), and 'If I 
Knew What Poets Know/ Should I have enclosed 
others, or were they my best ? I did not know/' The 
letter he dropped in the box was as follows : 

Greenfield, Indiana, November 20, 1876. 
Mr. Henry W. Longfellow — 

Dear Sir: I find the courage to address you as I 
would a friend since by your works you have proven 
yourself a friend to the world. I would not, however, 
intrude upon you now did I not feel that you alone could 
assist me. 

For a few weeks I have been gaining some praise 
for poems written with no higher ambition than to 
please myself and friends; but as many of them have 
been copied through the country and the fascination of 
writing has grown upon me, I would like to enter the 
literary field in earnest, were I assured I possessed real 
talent. I have sometimes thought so, and again have 
been very doubtful in that regard. About two years 
since I sent a poem to Hearth and Home, and it was 
received and published with illustrations. I had given 
them the poem, but they paid me for it, a small though 
handsome sum to me, and I was encouraged to send 
another, which I did, but the journal was just suspend- 
ing as it reached them. My manuscript was returned, 
with a kindly note from Donald G. Mitchell, the retiring 
editor, advising me to continue the exercise of what he 
was pleased to term "my literary talent." 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 319 

I enclose for your inspection two or three of my 
better efforts, hoping to elicit from you a word of com- 
ment and advice. If without merit or promise, your 
telling me so will make me happy, and if the contrary, 
encouragement will give me strength to do as you may 
be pleased to advise. 

With profound respect, I remain your humble servant 
and admirer, J. W. Riley. 

Having mailed the letter there followed a ten days' 
suspense. Time hung heavily over Greenfield. "Ten 
days !" said Riley, drawling out the words ; "it — was — 
ten — weeks. Every hour I grew more doubtful of an 
answer from Longfellow. I was told the last thing he 
wanted to do was to give an opinion of other people's 
poems. My head was full of suspicions — my letter 
might not reach him — he might be sick, and so forth. 
The opiate for my perturbation was 'The Spanish 
Student/ It was soothing to read it. I was in love 
and like the Student confronted with the awful mystery 
of Life." 

There was another cause for his perturbation. He 
was wrestling with his new poem, "Fame." Many 
waves broke upon the "seashore of his mind." One 
night 

"The loud and ponderous mace of Time 
Knocked at the golden portals of the day," 

before he slept. Recalling the night, he talked of phan- 
toms that filled the air, and how the silence was 
haunted by the ghosts of sound. There were "strange 
cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have 
no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet, 
that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter 
snow." He had a vision of fame, but it did not "make 



320 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

the night glorious with its smile." What he saw was 
the fame of a man 

"Who journeyed on through life, unknown, 
Without one friend to call his own ; 
No sympathetic sob or sigh 
Of trembling lips — no sorrowing eye 
Looked out through tears to see him die." 

It seems relevant to note here that "Fame" was not 
written in a night. There was time for suggestions 
from the "Golden Girl." "The poem," he said, "re- 
quired the revision and reconstruction of weeks." 
Changes occurred up to the very month of its publica- 
tion in the Earlhamite of Earlham College, February, 
1877. 

Riley had been blessed with the vision of his mis- 
sion, but poets, like other mortals, if they do their 
work, must have their crust of bread. It was literally 
true that he had less money than his Schoolmaster 
who had none — for he was in debt. In his extremity, 
he had decided to replenish his exchequer by favor- 
ably answering another call from the Graphic Com- 
pany, when, like a breath from Araby, came a letter 
from the "Golden Girl," which made it more than a 
mere fancy of hers that she held in her "weak white 
hands" his hopes and fortune. Gaunt starvation must 
be vanquished, but not by wasting time with the 
"Graphics." The wandering desire for travel and 
money was fatal. In those doubtful weeks she gave 
him courage. "Her mirth," he said, "was like a zephyr 
challenging the East Wind." As she saw it, the new 
poet could do anything. "I say," she wrote, rallying 
him on his fertility of resources, "did you ever teach 
school or sell sewing machines?" Then she grew seri- 
ous; her love "reached over the endless sea of 






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LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 321 

absence." She wanted to feel the presence of the hand 
that had fashioned so many beautiful messages. "And 
you are going away with the 'Graphics*? I am sorry. 

'I can't quite make it clear, 
It seems so horrid queer/ 

I wish I might whisper to you all the rare diamonds of 
thought Hope flings at my feet to-day." 

While struggling with his new poem and doubting in 
himself what to do for a living, Riley was prompted to 
call at the post-office and this is what he found : 

Cambridge, Nov. 30, 1876. 
My Dear Sir: 

Not being in the habit of criticising the productions 
of others, I can not enter into any minute discussion of 
the merits of the poems you send me. 

I can only say in general terms that I have read 
them with great pleasure, and think they show the true 
poetic faculty and insight. 

The only criticism I shall make is on your use of the 
word prone in the thirteenth line of "Destiny." Prone 
means face-downward. You meant to say supine, as 
the context shows. 

I return the printed pieces, as you may want them 
for future use, and am, my Dear Sir, with all good 
wishes, Yours very truly, 

Henry W. Longfellow, 

But one result could follow. To borrow his own 
words, he was "in a perfect hurricane of delight." Ke 
walked away from the post-office, not through the 
streets of Greenfield, but "through some enchanted 
city, where the pavements were of air; where all the 
rough sounds of a stirring town were softened into 
gentle music; where everything was happy; where 
there was no distance and no time." 



322 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"Gently his pathway turned from night; 
The hills swung open to the light ; 
And on his fortune's farther side 
He saw the hilltops glorified." 

The hour had arrived for that old faithful clock, the 
Greenfield Democrat, to strike again. Under the cap- 
tion, Our Poet, the editor printed the Longfellow letter 
and commented upon "the poetic merits of our young 
fellow townsman, James W. Riley. We are gratified 
to learn that his poetic talent has not only been appre- 
ciated by his friends at home, but has received the 
recognition of America's most eminent poet. The 
Democrat is proud of having one among us whose 
brilliant future is almost assured, and by way of en- 
couragement reminds our young friend that 

Toets have undoubted right to claim, 

If not the greatest, the most lasting name.' " 

The Schoolmaster rejoiced that his "winter of dis- 
content was made glorious summer by this sun of the 
Muses. Do you recall the days," he asks Riley, "we 
used to spend together under the beech trees at the old 
schoolhouse, when we were several years younger than 
now, the days we strayed like the breeze among the 
blossoms? 

'When Hope clung feeding, like a bee, 
And Love and Life went a-Maying 
With Nature, Faith and Poesy' ?" 

He then warns Riley that Pegasus is frequently 
•refractory. "You may have," he added, "a whole 
week of jubilant exultation — a week of con- 
stant dashing hither and thither upon your 
winged steed — sometimes among the clouds, some- 
times above the stars — a hand upon the rein and 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 323 

he obeys, a touch with the heel and he flies, until the 
whole earth lies beneath you, and all its inexhaustible 
wealth of beautiful imagery is at your command and 
then — a balk-— a halt — a fall — and Helicon a mole-hill 
— Hippocrene a mud puddle — and Pegasus a mule, 
braying for his fodder." 

His friend, B. S. Parker, sent congratulations, but 
warned Riley not to "feel too much flattered, but to 
proceed discreetly, to cultivate the acquaintance of 
other distinguished and influential men of letters." Nor 
must he "feel greatly grieved or disheartened if some 
should snub him." Parker had had gratifying letters, 
but "they had done him no further good than the mo- 
mentary bliss they had occasioned." 

It is a great event, it has been said, for a young 
writer to receive his first letter from a great man. 
"He can never receive letters enough from famous men 
afterward to obliterate that one, or dim the memory 
of the pleasant surprise it was and the gratification it 
gave him. Lapse of time can not make it common- 
place or cheap." As to the memory of it, this was true 
of Riley. The Longfellow letter was his pearl of great 
price, but, unlike Aldrich, he did not caress it as an 
autographic treasure to the end of his days. He 
carried it in his "reticule" a year or so, then laid 
it away and saw it no more. Again it was— "Trust 
in Providence and in his own efforts." The con- 
viction was borne in upon him that there is but 
one straight road to success and that is merit. 
Capacity lacked not opportunity. It could not 
forever remain undiscovered. Letters from the dis- 
tinguished never had made a young writer great and 
never could. God would not have it so. Each writer, 
with fear and trembling, had to work out his own lit- 



324 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

erary salvation. Some have thought that had Long- 
fellow written Riley that his poems were without merit 
or promise, his literary ambitions would have come 
suddenly to an end. Reporters have made him say: 
"I made up my mind if Longfellow said 'No/ I would 
quit all that kind of thing forever." He never said it. 
One adverse criticism could not have overcome his na- 
tive tendency. The impulse to write was so powerful 
that escape from it was inconceivable. As late as 1879, 
while painting a sign to earn his daily bread, this im- 
pelling force was sufficient to bring him down the 
ladder to write a poem. 

Among other lessons he learned from the letter was 
the value one should attach to words. Henceforth he 
would study their use and abuse. When his poem, 
"A Vision of Summer," "warmed him through and 
through with tropical delight/' he lay supine — thanks 
to Longfellow — not prone. 

"On grassy swards, where the skies, like eyes, 
Look lovingly back to mine. ,, 

Almost immediately he made use of the letter to 
thaw out the icy East. He wrote and illustrated a 
"serio-humorous poem," "The Funny Little Fellow," 
and sent it to Scribner's. He felt certain his illustra- 
tions were as good as the average found in "Bric-a- 
Brac" of that monthly. It was a good idea to combine 
both poet and artist. "I backed up my ability with my 
Longfellow letter," said he. "You can imagine my 
' chagrin when I received their 'Respectfully Declined.' " 

The first letter to Longfellow was a legitimate per- 
formance, but the second, in Riley's own words, "was 
unwarranted and inexcusable. I made the mistake 
most writers make; having received a good letter, I 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 325 

must, forsooth, have another. They say Longfellow 
was grim when they came to steal his time. Grim? 
When maidens came with their manuscripts in blue 
velvet, and young men with carpetbags full of poems, 
he should have frowned till they heard Thor hurling 
thunder!" 

Riley never could be quite penitent enough — when he 
grew older and realized what the infliction meant — for 
having been so stupid as to send another carpetbagful. 
To enclose "The Iron Horse" and one or two other 
short poems would not have been so bad, but with them 
to send "A Remarkable Man," "Tale of a Spider," and 
"Flying Islands of the Night," was a Grub-Street 
offense for which there was no pardon. Nevertheless, 
he sent them, although, as he said, "two years elapsed 
before I was stupid enough to do it." The following 
letter accompanied them, which received a prompt 
answer : 

Greenfield, Ind., Sept. 2, 1878. 
Henry W. Longfellow — 

Dear Sir : Emboldened by a very kind and encourag- 
ing letter received from you some two years since, I 
take the liberty of enclosing to you some of my later 
work. And I desire again to express to you my warm- 
est thanks for the great good both your influence and 
kind words have done me. While I have not^ been 
recognized by the magazines, I have a reputation in my 
own state of which I am proud, and through it I am not 
only making progress but money as well. 

The poetical drama I enclose, as you will see, is with- 
out ambition, yet for all that I most certainly trust you 
will find in it something pleasurable. Regretting to 
afflict you with the additional trouble of returning the 
scraps, I am 

Most Truly and Gratefully yours, 

J. W. Riley. 



326 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Cambridge, Sept. 5, 1878. 

My Dear Sir: 

I have received the poems you were kind enough to 
send me, and have read the lyric pieces with much 
pleasure. 

"The Flying Islands of the Night" I have not yet 
read, being very busy just now with many things. As 
you say I may keep it, I will do so, and read it care- 
fully at some favorable moment. 

The other poems I return as you desire, and am, my 
Dear Sir, Yours very truly, 

Henry W. Longfellow. 

P. S. — Among these poems the one that pleased me 
much as any, if not more than any, was "The Iron 
Horse." 

The letter that could prompt the beautiful sonnet to 
Longfellow was not a mistake after all. One still hears 
the trees whispering to him and the winds talking with 
him confidingly: 

"His verse blooms like a flower, night and day; 
Bees cluster round his rhymes ; and twitterings 
Of lark and swallow, in an endless May 
Are mingling with the tender songs he sings." 

What effect Riley's letters and poems had on Long- 
fellow is largely conjecture. Reviewers have thought 
his "Possibilities" was the result. It may be true, for 
it is a matter of record that the sonnet was written in 
1882, after Riley's call at the Craigie House in January 
of that year. "Come into my study," said the poet, 
' "it is more like freedom here ; we can talk and be 
content." At his request Riley read "Old Fashioned 
Roses." "Delightful ! delightful !" repeated Longfellow. 
They talked of "our native poets and their work." 
Longfellow knew them all and "loved them all — even 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 327 

the humblest." They talked particularly of "western 
characteristics and dialects and the possibilities of the 
West for song." 

"Where are the Poets?" asks Longfellow in the son- 
net; 

"Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught 
In schools, some graduate of the field or street, 
Who shall become a master of the art, 
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought, 
Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet 
For lands not yet laid down in any chart." 

Riley never claimed to be an admiral sailing the 
high seas, but he was untaught of the schools. Without 
any chart he steered fearless and first into a new field 
of song. The whole of twenty years, beginning with 
the year of his vision, was a constant fight with the 
critics for the rights and merits of that field. 

Letters from celebrities, with one exception, made lit- 
tle impression on him. No answer came from Whit- 
tier, but that disappointment was soon softened by the 
sympathy of Trowbridge. "Sympathizingly Yours" 
stayed with him to the year of his departure (1916) 
and Trowbridge with his four score and ten years 
was permitted to see the dawn of the same year. 

Arlington, Mass., Dec. 1, 1876. 
Mr. J. W. Riley, 

Dear Sir: I recognize touches here and there in 
these little pieces, which indicate a good deal of fancy 
& sympathy — prime requisites in the writing of verse ; 
but neither of them seems to have that original force 
necessary to conceive & complete a really striking poem. 
This may be in you yet, though your 26 years may not 
have enabled you — so far — to master it. With what 
talent these pieces show, you may undoubtedly write 



328 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

pleasing and perhaps popular pieces; but to be mar- 
ketable & to make its mark, poetry must nowadays be 
in some respect striking. 
I am Sympathizingly Yours, 

J. T. Trowbridge. 

Trowbridge as "Paul Creyton" with his popular tales 
for the young, had caught the attention of Greenfield 
several years prior to his letter to Riley. As editor of 
Our Young Folks, he drew Riley's attention to the lit- 
erary significance of the Child-World. Longfellow had 
given but a hint of its riches. There was a call for 
some one to take up the theme where he left it. Some 
one should try his genius on childhood. Children should 
lisp and whisper their messages to us, tell us 

"What the birds and the winds are singing 
In their sunny atmosphere." 

Trowbridge had also set Riley reflecting on the im- 
portance of frontier material for poetry. Some one, 
Trowbridge thought, should seek it in the Backwoods 
Enchanted, go back among old armchairs, old-fash- 
ioned spinning-wheels and dismantled looms, search 
among dusty cobwebs, find 

"Far under the eaves, the bunch of sage, 
The satchel hung on its nail, amid 
The heirlooms of a bygone age." 

But let him beware! "Facts are facts," said Trow- 
bridge, "but if not clothed with grace and the warm tis- 
sues of human sympathy, they are no more the truth 
than a skeleton is a living body." 

The first to direct Riley's attention to the wonderland 
of poetry in his immediate surroundings was his 
schoolmaster, Lee 0. Harris. Trowbridge was the 
second. There was a third. 



LIGHT AND COUNSEL FROM THE WISE 329 

One afternoon in October, 1876, while Riley was 
aglow with the vision of his mission, there came to 
Greenfield a man who as an orator had few peers in 
his generation, Robert G. Ingersoll. His speech — a 
political one in the heat of a national campaign — 
was embellished with poems in prose, which seemed 
to Riley the gift of the gods. He listened for 
two hours to eloquence that remained golden in mem- 
ory for forty years. Extolling the splendor of the new 
day, the orator said : "Nothing is more marvelous than 
the common everyday facts of everyday life. The age 
of wonders is not in the past. There are millions of 
miracles under our feet. In the lives of the people, here 
and now, are all the comedy and tragedy they can com- 
prehend." Before closing, the orator touched upon 
another important fact : that the luster of noble quali- 
ties shines alike in the plainest workman and the most 
accomplished gentleman. Indeed it had shone under 
a rough exterior and had been wanting in the polished 
scholar. The hairy, unsocial savage who knew how to 
get things done, and got them done, was a better serv- 
ant of his country than one who, without the positive 
qualification, happened to be intellectually eminent. 

It was a center shot; it went straight to Riley's heart. 
Scales fell from his eyes. He saw his field. Better yet, 
he saw as never before the glory of the imperfect and 
the commonplace. He attached greater value to his 
surroundings. Referring to the orator he said, bor- 
rowing the familiar lines, 

"I know not what this man may be, 
Sinner or saint; but as for me, 
One thing I know, that I am he 
Who once was blind and now I see !" 

That day he saw what his friend John Burroughs 



330 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

wrote at a later period, that the lure of the distant is 
deceptive ; that the great opportunity is where we are : 
"Every place is under the stars, every place is the 
centre of the world" — his native town with its neigh- 
boring county-seats, Anderson, Newcastle, Rushville, 
Shelbyville and Indianapolis, encircled a kingdom large 
enough for the exercise of his powers. That contracted 
circle was also wide enough for a degree of rapture he 
never experienced in the heyday of fame. Yearning 
for the hilltops glorified, "lacking everything save 
faith and a great purpose," he was in a hundred ways 
happier than he was in later years, when success show- 
ered upon him applause and gold. 

It is a literal fact that within a radius of forty miles 
of Greenfield, Riley found all the material for his poems. 
What he found outside the circle was accidental and 
had its counterpart within it. Here were all the com- 
edy and tragedy of human life ; here a million miracles 
under his feet ; here the center of the world. Since he 
touched the heartstrings in his own community, since 
the history of the nation is the history of communities 
written large, and since human nature is the same the 
world over, his songs were destined to be universally 
loved. 



CHAPTER XVI 

ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 

ONCE more the lights of his native streets had 
become feeble tapers — once more the Argonaut 
sought his fortune in Anderson — not on the 
"Buckeye," but on a county paper. 

"Beneath the lamplight's scorching shade, 
With eyes all wild, and lips all pale, 
He courts the Muse. Read from his pen, — 
The Democrat. This tells the tale." 

His purse-strings were contracted and Greenfield 
could not relax them. "Why an appetite," he quiz- 
zically asked ; "what is the good of cutting your wisdom 
teeth when there is nothing to eat in the house but a 
butcher's bill and a dun for rent?" 

The yearning of this man for freedom from the bond- 
age of debt is one of the many pathetic phases of his 
existence. Other artists, the "British Book" said, 
painted to live, but John Opie lived to paint, and that 
was identically the relation Riley desired to sustain to 
poetry — not to write poems to live, but live to write 
poems. 

Perhaps, after all, the bitter experience was the way 
of Destiny to bruise his heart, that its door of sympathy 
might be always open to the need and distress of the 
world. He never sought money for ignoble ends, never 
bowed the knee before it as a worshipper, but he craved 
it for personal benefit that he might thereby do a work 
of universal benefit. At Greenfield and for years after 
331 



332 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

he moved to the city, Riley often talked to friends in 
the guise of the light-hearted Skimpole, overwhelming 
them with money — "in his expansive intentions." 
"He had no more idea of wages than a bluebird," 
said his friend Reed. "Money was a mystery." It 
had the color of magic. In the folk tales, the caps of 
fairies and musicians were red — and gold was red. 
As late as the year of his first book (1883), he sighs 
for the "red ruddocks." "You must not forget," he 
wrote his friend Parker, "that in the pecuniary aspect 
I present the picturesque outlines of the typical poet — 
merry, at times, thank God, as Chispa describes the 
Serenaders who enjoy hunger by day and noise by 
night." There were gloomy days — but never a 
moment for surrender. "Merry," he sometimes 
repeated when at work, "merry as old Skimpole." 
Creditors "might pluck his feathers now and then, and 
clip his wings, but all the same he would work and 
sing." "Afterwhile," he merrily wrote another friend, 

"Afterwhile — the poet-man 
Will do better when he can — 
Afterwhile, with deep regrets, 
He will even pay his debts; 
And by drayload, cart and hack, 
Will take borrowed volumes back, 
And will gibber, shriek and smile — 
When he brings 'em — afterwhile !" 

There were occasions at night however when he was 
really blue, when he had to sing himself to sleep with 
some such "rhythmical tumult" as, 

"I am weary of waiting, and weary of tears, 
And my heart wearies, too, all these desolate years, 
Moaning over the one only song that it knows-, — 
The little red ribbon, the ring and the rose." 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 333 

Prior to employment on the Anderson Democrat, he 
made several fruitless attempts to secure a place in 
some editorial room. Painting signs was not the only- 
way to make a living. "I had once," he writes Parker 
of the Newcastle Mercury, late in 1876, "a few weeks' 
experience as the local editor of our little paper. I 
liked it better than anything I ever tried to do, and I 
write to say that I would like to be with you in that 
capacity. I would be willing and glad to work for 
whatever you were able to pay for such help, if help is 
desired. Please revolve it around your brain a time or 
two and tell me your conclusion." It turned out that 
the Mercury was "a bankrupt organ without a copper 
for contributors." 

"The long winter months, and the glare of the snows, 
With never a glimmer of sun in the skies," 

wore on to the following "WORD" in the Democrat—* 
the last week in April, 1877 : 

It is our endeavor to serve the best interests of our 
patrons, and with this in view,, we have secured the 
services of Mr. J. W. Riley, who has attained quite a 
reputation as a poet and writer. His productions have 
already attracted the attention of such men as Long- 
fellow, Whittier, Trowbridge and many other notables ; 
and being convinced of the high order of the talent he 
possesses in that direction, we believe we not only 
benefit ourselves and patrons by the acquisition of his 
services, but that he is also supplied with a congenial 
position, and one in which he will develop the highest 
attributes of his nature. Feeling that we already have 
the hearty endorsement of a kindly public, we leave Mr. 
Riley to close the homily. 

Todisman & Croan (Proprietors). 



334 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

In making my salam to the Anderson public, I desire 
first to extend my warmest thanks to those who have 
interested themselves in my behalf, and whose kindly 
influence has assisted me to an office I will ever feel a 
pleasure in occupying. And in the fulfillment of the 
duties that devolve upon me, it shall be my earnest en- 
deavor to merit the trust and confidence that has been 
so generously reposed. That the position is one that is 
fraught with a thousand trials and vexations, shall not 
deter me from the steadfast purpose of right and jus- 
tice ; and while I shall at times exercise the lighter attri- 
butes which go to make up the interest of a weekly, it 
shall be my care as well, to weed away all petty slurs 
that choke the growth of dignity, and in fact, to nurture 
jealously the character of the paper, and assist in my 
humble way in giving to its individuality the stamp 
which "bears without abuse the grand old name of gen- 
tleman." Trusting the kindly indulgence of the public 
for any discrepancy of inexperience, I am, 

Yours truly, 

J. W. Riley. 

There were doubtless many cups of happiness in An- 
derson, but none quite so full as that which Riley held 
when he entered the Democrat office. For the first 
time in his life he was under contract at a regular sal- 
ary — forty dollars a month. When at the end of the 
first month, the circulation was doubled and his salary 
raised to sixty, his cup ran over. That was unmistak- 
able testimony to the merit of the "acquisition." (The 
"thousand trials and vexations" had not yet arrived.) 
There came also exchanges with their compliments. 
"One of the best writers among the young litterateurs 
of the west," said the Indianapolis Herald. "A good 
thing for the Democrat/' said the Newcastle Mercury. 
The Earlhamite, which had given wings to his poem, 
"Fame," sent its best wishes and hoped "he would find 
many roses in the pathway of life." "Our rising Indiana 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 335 

poet," said the Richmond Independent, "hails us from 
the tripod of the Anderson Democrat, a newsy, bright- 
faced paper, which will grow under the spell of his ver- 
satile genius. A capital, illustrated burlesque, 'Maud 
Muller/ adorns the first page, the artistic and poetical 
production of the new aspirant to editorial honors." 

The merriment "Maud Muller" created was consid- 
erable. There was a ripple among the exchanges when 

"The sweet girl stood in the sun that day, 
And raked the Judge instead of the hay." 

And a ripple was all Riley intended. "It was a mere 
bagatelle," he said. That any one should consider it a 
poetical production was to "steep his mirth in chagrin." 
The original "Maud Muller" had been dramatized and 
Whittier had "utterly disowned her," which fact sug- 
gested the little diversion at the Quaker Poet's expense. 

Very soon the man beneath the lamplight's scorching 
shade was known around town as the "Perspiring 
Poet." And truly the work he accomplished from April 
to September, 1877, was extraordinary. He was liter- 
ally an eagle-eyed Argus, meditating, playing, working, 
and perspiring by day and by night on his weekly 
tripod. If there was anything in Anderson or Madison 
County that escaped his telescopic or microscopic vi- 
sion, his fellow citizens failed to find it. 

Among the manifold things he did was to "embellish 
the news." Trowbridge's counsel bore fruit from the 
first. The bare facts sent in from Kill Buck, Poliwag, 
and Weasel Prairie, were not the truth till clothed with 
his sparkling humor. Country correspondents scarcely 
recognized their prosy items, after they had passed 
through the Democrat's "humorous mill." They read 
them with inconceivable surprise and glee. 



336 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Brightwood, for example, was "the little station 
down the Bee Line that did not possess enough dignity 
to stop a train." 

A carpenter, shingling a barn at Prosperity, "slipped 
from the roof and shot over the eaves like a bull-frog." 

Captain Doxey's "mocking bird" was a "twittering 
pilgrim, and when properly wound up played three 
tunes; but the ratchet slipped occasionally and 'Cap- 
tain Jinks' and 'Molly Darling' flew into each other 
with a vehemence that was blood-curdling." 

"Our Editor is running round the country like a 
water-bug, and a perfect nebula of new subscribers be- 
spangles our subscription list; 

The lark is up to meet the sun, 

The bee is on the wing; 
The Democrat it has begun 

To go like everything." 

A team ran away at Perkinsville. "The horses got 
down to their work and for a time 

'Beneath their spurning feet the road 
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed.' " 

"While with joy akin to rapture we cluster round the 
glowing grate and settle comfortably to the entrancing 
task of our 'Ode to May,' let us not forget the anguish 
of our unfortunate neighbor as he buries himself in the 
bleak and barren basement of his heart and wonders 
bitterly what his fussy old consort meant by having him 
take down the sitting room stove so soon." 

"If the young man who sends us the poetry begin- 
ning 'How beautiful iz the birds' will bring us the 
address of his parents, we will see that his remains 
reach home in safety." 

The sweet Goddess of Spring had been coquetting, 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 337 

but now "she has unrolled her emerald carpet over the 
world ; thrown to the winds her leafy banners ; touched 
with her mystic wand the folded bud, and wooed it into 
bloom. She has scattered, too, with lavish hand the 
feathered seeds of song and called to life the glad voice 
of the brook; the sunshine is a gleaming smile of gold 
throughout the day; and in the night, whose strange 
weird beauty awes us like a gipsy maiden's eyes, the 
ebon back of the Thomas cat is arched, and his quiver- 
ing tail points to the solemn stars." 

These and scores of other items equally humorous, 
accompany the following lines that appeared in his 
"invocation" column to the business public — 

"Come to the sanctum board to-night, 
And friendship there will be your gain,— 
For where the Democrat is found 
No sorrow can remain." 

There was a passage in the Life of the "Cornish Won- 
der," John Opie, that appealed to Riley with special sig- 
nificance. According to Opie, he who wishes to be a 
painter must not overlook any kind of knowledge, and, 
as Riley saw it, the law is the same for the poet. 

On entering the Democrat office, he immediately put 
"the painter's injunction" into practice. Wide-awake 
as a lamp-lighter he went down the streets and up the 
alleys, through the highways and byways for materials. 
Nor did he have to stare at things to know what and 
where they were. It was current opinion that "he 
could look down the shelves of a hardware store and 
see at a glance everything on them." In June the 
Democrat began to mass materials. For weeks it 
harped on "practical things"— three to five columns an 
issue. It made its bow in — 



538 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



AN IDYL OF TO-DAY 



The Blunt Blade of Business 
Ground to an Ethereal Edge. 



OUR POET AT THE CRANK 
Motto : "Grind till the last armed foe expires. 3 



INVOCATION 



Courteous Muse, you have served me so long 
As guide through the devious highways of song; 
And ever have led me with willingest hand 
Adown the dim aisles of that fanciful land, 
Where even Aladdin — the luckiest scamp 

That ever was spared by a kerosene lamp — 

Not happier was or more burdened with bliss 

Than the poor, impecunious writer of this. 

And as I recall with rapturous thrill 

The ripe fruits of rhyme which I gathered at will — 

The lush, juicy clusters on Poesy's tree 

That weighed down the limbs to accommodate me, — 

The jet of my thanks flashes into a blaze 

That will brighten my life all the rest of my days. 

And so, as the gas glimmers over my brow 

And gleams on the pencil Pm writing with now — 

And glances from that with a jocular flash 

To redden my already ruddy mustache ; — 

1 can but give over all yearnings for fame, 
To write a few lines with the singular aim 
Of pleasing the world with an idyl that rings 
The music of business and practical things. 

It was a bid for business to open its alcoves for the 
•poet's inspection. "There is no cessation of the ardu- 
ous labors of my position," he wrote his Schoolmaster 
in July, "and I am grateful for it, for I think the news- 
paper school an excellent one and filled with most valu- 
able experience. I am still at the crank, but even with 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 339 

that I have daily acquired some new proficiency. I 
have written many poems that I have laid away — the 
kind I publish are only intended for the casual reader, 
as you know. The better ones I reserve for better dis- 
tinction." 

The casual reader saw such "literary atrocities" as 
"Craqueodoom" and "Wrangdillion," such inferior 
fruits of labor as "The Frog," which he termed his 
batrachian idyl, "A Man of Many Parts," "A Test of 
Love," "George Mullen's Confession," "Wash Lowry's 
Reminiscence" and "Now We Can Sleep, Mother," the 
latter a parody on the old familiar "Rock Me To Sleep," 
celebrating the expiration of the sewing machine pat- 
ent. The drudgery of millions of poor women was at 
an end. "Broken was the sewing machine monopoly — 
snapped the last thread of tyranny that bound a starv- 
ing people hand and foot ; 

"Backward, throw backward the curtain to-night, 
Open the window and let the glad light 
Of the round moon shimmer over the scene 
Where we at last own a sewing machine." 

The casual reader also saw, and muddled his wits 
with such incoherent prose effusions as "The Duck 
Creek Jabberwock," "Unawangawawa ; or The Eyelash 
of the Lightning," "Trillpipe's Boy on Spiders," and 
"The Anderson Mystery," — the first, the story of "a 
strange animal of the basket-backed species in a neck 
of the woods where they never read the Bible or take 
the Democrat"; the last, the tale of a Healthy Ghost, 
"facts without fancy about a mysterious lodger that 
sheltered its goblin head" within the walls of a haunted 
house, some such mystery as the echoes of footsteps on 
the Ghost's Walk when the dusky wings of solitude sat 



340 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

brooding upon Chesney Wold. The "Perspiring Poet" 
had searched the house "from turret to foundation 
stone, gone through the floor like the genii in some en- 
chanted palace, had peeped under the sleepers and 
emerged in a coil of cobwebs with the unfathomable 
mystery — and hoped the day would soon dawn when he 
could give his readers a full biography of the ghostly 
visitor, with pen-portrait, including stature, weight, 
color of eyes and hair." 

The "Jingling Editor" began his "idyl on business" 
with a curtsy to the main-floor room under his office, 
where the clangor of iron-ware contrasted painfully 
with the silence he craved when the Muse was indul- 
gent: 

"Here on the balcony, a sign 
Somewhat marred by the rain and the shine 
Of a dozen years, still checks the stare j 

Of the passer-by with the word 'Hardware !' 
While a portly man in the door below — 
Making the sign more apropos — 
Stands, in a loosely-fitting sack, 
With his legs wide out and his hat set back, 
But an open face and a genial air 
Shows that his heart is a softer ware 
Than the goods he keeps in the store-room there. 
Stretching along on either side 
Of the walls of the warehouse long and wide, 
The shelving sags with the heavy weight 
Of hinges, hoes, and the chains that grate 
Their tinkling links on the gleaming blades 
Of the scythes below, and the rakes and spades ; 
And the thousand nameless instruments 
That the tireless mind of man invents 
For the tradesman's use, or the farmer's hand, 
Or the sportman's need, or the smith's demand ; 
Till even the eye as it looks on these — 
Dazzled is it with the sight it sees." 




Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

1868 




John Townsend Trowbridge 
From a photograph taken in 1S72 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 341 

"The huge appetite of the public for wonders re- 
quires daily food." "The Poet at the Crank" knew it— 
and supplied the demand in cargoes. No weekly editor 
reached the rural districts as did Riley. Farmers called 
to see him. They came with their families — and 
brought gifts from their gardens and orchards. Bou- 
quets "blossomed on his table while their fragrance 
hovered on odorous wings about the dusty crannies of 
his office." Once when the street in front of his bal- 
cony was congested with wagons that had brought 
families with their applause from the country, he was 
reminded of huzzas for the "Cornish Wonder." "These 
coaches of nobility," he jestingly observed, "are be- 
come a nuisance to the neighborhood." 

The keynote of his success lay in this, the establish- 
ment of a friendly relation between town and country 
— and he was about the first man in America to do it. 
"Without the farmer," he said, "the town can not flour- 
ish. Ye men of the streets, be cordial to our rustic 
brethren. They are more potent than bankers and law- 
yers, more essential to the public good than poets and 
politicians. Do all you can for them. Farmers should 
vibrate wisely and heartily between the Public Square 
and the farm — and we of the town should do the same. 
The golden mean escapes the plagues that haunt the 
extremes. 

Could I pour out the nectar the gods only can, 

I would fill up my glass to the brim 

And drink the success of the Suburban Man." 

Said a matronly mother, the idol of a happy family, 
"The poet just threw his arms around our county and 
took it to see the sights. He regaled us with the wit 
that had been the talk of his sign-painting. Such 



342 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

cleverness in versifying, our town had never known." 
"The mock seriousness," says a writer, "with which 
he took himself and the Democrat made it for a time 
a more welcome sheet in Anderson than would have 
been a comic almanac." 

"Dear ever indulgent and generous Muse, 
You may give me occasional lifts if you choose — 
If not I shall stagger along all the same, 
And so, if I falter, why, yours is the blame." 

Down the streets and up the lanes he went with the 
public in his "Rhyme Wagon" — and the magical thing 
about it was that the public could ride in it and at the 
same time sit by the lamplight of home. 

" 'Make way for Liberty !' (he said) 
Made way for Liberty, and led 
A grateful people on to where 
A ceaseless clamor filled the air; 
And countless hammers beat and banged 
And iron echoes clanked and clanged 
As if new worlds were just begun 
By workingmen at Anderson." 

He took the curious gaze of worldly eyes to the new 
Machine Shop where the pulse of labor 

"Gilded bands and polished steel, 
And strange machines whose works reveal 
The master minds that have resigned 
Their thoughts to benefit mankind." 

Then through "cinder alley" to the Repair Shop, 
where the off-hand mare had kicked the end gate out 
of the wagon, splintered the single-tree 

"And sprung the tongue, till — I declare J — 
'Twas enough to make a preacher swear." 

Then across the railroad (with apologies to Byron 
and his "Waterloo") to hear the sound of ripplery in 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 343 

the Planing Mill. There artisans had gathered in noisy 
array — ■ 

"A hundred hearts beat happily; and when 
Sawdust arose with its voluptuous smell, 
Red eyes looked work to eyes as red again 
And all went merry as a married belle. 
But hush ! hark ! a deep sound strikes like a 
rising knell. ,, 

Did ye not hear it? It was not the wind, nor the car 
rattling o'er the stony street. It was the roar of the 
Mill on a rampage with the whistles that spilled dis- 
cordant shrieks from their brazen throats, sweet to the 
hungry men at twelve o'clock as melody to the heart of 
a poet. 

Then to the Retail District, where the Babel of busi- 
ness was bewildering, where clerks were caroling gay 
and 

"The chorus ever echoes on and on, 
And swells in volume till the glee 
Is wafted over land and sea." 

To the corner room of the hotel where the jeweler 
blossoms like a Persian king in affluence : 

"Who but he 
Could read a watch's pedigree? 
A Chieftain to the Highlands bound, 
Who missed the 'Accommodation/ 
Pulled out his watch and took it round 
To Shirk for reparation. 

And Shirk squints sharply through the glass — 
He took a pair of 'pinchers,' 
And raised a little wheel of brass 
And nipped it with his clinchers, 
And put it back, and oiled the works, 
And cleaned the graven border ; 
And watch and man went out of Shirk's 
In perfect running order." 



344 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Oh, that mammoth stock of shoes — gaiters, carpet 
slippers, and red-top boots with copper-tips for the 
children ! 

" 'What boots it V Shakespeare asks — 
We answer Conwell's Store ; 
For never boots were better made, 
Or sold as cheaply to the trade 
In Anderson before." 

"And don't forget some cash to pay the pedler" — 
scan those bright faces behind the glass at the Citizen's 
Bank, 

"Walk up to the counter and lay down a check, 
And see the cashier lightly curving his neck 
Evincing that he's not a moneyless wreck." 

Feast the eye on the tints of fashion, the reds, and 
the blues and modest hues, and the flowers that light 
the gloom of the millinery room, 

"Where the goods are all new 
And as fresh and as pure as the pearliest dew 
That jewels the jasmine in jauntiest May. 

The ties and cuffs 

And laces and ruffs, 
And all the little fancy stuffs 

Are too sublime 

For idle rhyme 
To ever dare the heights to climb." 

Stop at the Bon Ton Shaving Parlor where the mus- 
tache is made as soft and fair as silks of the corn in 
the summer air ; see the barber 

"Strop his razor till it gleams 
Brighter than the light that beams 
From the moon on winter snow 
When the sleighbells come and go." 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 345 

Up a winding stair — a lunge and a jerk — a thump 
and a bump — a rough road for the "Rhyme Wagon" to 
go, — up to ring a little bell, up to the Gallery "to see 
the picture of the man with an album in his hand"; 
and before descending, a pause on the balcony in the 
shade of the catalpa tree to see if the world, morbid 
and turbid in its greed for pelf, wears the color of 
romance it wore in youth : — 

"Twitter me something low and sweet, 
Over the din of the noisy street, 
Coax a sound from the ivory keys, 
And fling it out on the fevered breeze 
Like a spray of dew on a drooping flower 
That blooms again at the magic power, — ■ 
And the restless hearts that beat below 
Perchance may dream of the Long Ago, 
And sigh with a rapture of bliss 
For an era more refulgent than this 
And feel again in some sweet refrain, 
Release from the chafing strife for gain." 

Pegasus was on the brink of a flight from the bal- 
cony when the "blunt blade of business" re-hitched 
him to the "Rhyme Wagon" and he descended to the 
Corner Store 

"Just across the street 
Where foreign fruits, and pineapples 
And oranges are sweet 
And fresh as when in Tropic climes 
They ripened in the sun, 
And never dreamed of better times." 

Farther down the street to the store where the 
"Giant Boot fills a space on the sidewalk as large as 
any man in town" ; on to the Palace where wool-delaines 
and calicoes are kept; upstairs again to the Dentist 
where moans are spiced — 



346 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"With writhings, shriek and shout 
While the shrew has her teeth jerked out." 

Down the Main street again to the Merchant who would 
not advertise, whose name, mysteriously known to 
fame, was never seen in the Democrat; 

"And hence the Muse was prone to balk 
With sorrow-moistened eyes, 
And sigh to think she could not talk 
Of tact and enterprise." 

Across the way to the Druggist who has the "rinktum" 
for the stomach when Old Man Ague comes around 
"shaking hands with everybody, shaking legs, and feet, 
and toes, till his wracked and wretched victims long to 
shake his acquaintance." 

See the "crowd of customers happy as a circus-band 
come to town." History sings of the virtues and 
Verse carols 

"The praise of the Grocery men 
Who have built them a notable name, 
Their faces bright as Prosperity's when 
She toots on the trumpet of Fame." 

Then to the Book Store for croquet sets, rustic 
brackets, fancy paper — and the news and photographic 
views ; to the Furniture Store where the farmer pulled 
out his pocketbook and bought his wife a parlor set ; 

"And when she still insisted 
That she knew no end of cares, 
His money roll untwisted, 
For a set of sofa chairs." 

From Bacchus who crushed "the sweet poison from 
the purple grape" to Tennyson who spiced the ban- 
quet with "drinking songs — and the dust of death," 
poets have sung the praise or blame of wine. And 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 347 

since, in a wild frenzy, the "Crank was flaunting every- 
thing aloft like a flag," — rhyming of sulkies, gristmills, 
mattress springs, undertakers, public jokes, the Public 
Purse, cigars, potatoes, fish and fowl, and "everything 
the market affords from East to West," — since it was 
thus and so, there slipped from his pen a fragment for 
"the juice that drippeth from the grape." 

"And now the jolly Muse, with rosy lip 
Bedecked with crimson dew, must sing the praise 
Of wines that heaven knows have caught the fire 
Of some forgotten sun and kept it through 
A hundred years of gloom still glowing in 
A heart of ruby." 

There was a rare assortment — ripe vintages of all de- 
scriptions : Old Port Rye ; Kentucky Bourbon — 

"Liquors that so strangely lubricate 
The grooves of life that all the world slides by 
Without a jar or care of discontent, — 
Proof brandies that the doctors recommend 
In feverous times, when skeleton disease, 
In trailing robes of pestilence bedight, 
Stalks grimly through the land, and feeds the grave 
with mortals." 

Lest the "Crusaders" protest too vehemently, he 
hastened the next week to praise the "stream" that 
eloquently flowed from the Town Pump. Men might 
draw the cork and tip the decanter — "father Adam 
might founder on apples" but liquor was neither boon 
nor luxury in the Garden of Eden — 

"When the heart like a plummet resounds in the dumps, 
hasten to Platter & Batterall for pumps 
That will draw up the ale of old Adam, and make 
Your thirsty soul happy for charity's sake. 
They have all appliances ever ordained 
To handle elixirs, both dug-for and rained: 
So here's to the pumps that will jerk up success 
And splash satisfaction all over your dress." 



348 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"The way to do a thing is to do it" — and there is 
another saying — "Do the thing and you shall have 
the power." So it was with the "Poet at the Crank." 
He had been a minstrel, a sign-painter, a vagabond, 
a scrub reporter, a "lawyer," a rabid reader of novels 
and a clever imitator of old poets. There was danger 
of his becoming Jack of all trades and master of none. 
On entering the Democrat office that danger vanished. 
He became "master of rhymes." With singleness of 
purpose he cherished the art of making verse. He 
made rhymes (no end of them the mere shavings 
of the shop), rhymes of every conceivable kind 
about every conceivable thing — made them till his task, 
from the metrical side of poetry, was as easy as for 
winds to blow or brooks to murmur. Having mastered 
that, the next and all-commanding thing was to foster 
ideas. Though he rhyme with the tongues of angels, if 
he had not ideas he were a tinkling cymbal. To origi- 
nate ideas was not his province — they were gifts — but 
once he had them, he was to nourish and fondle them as 
a mother the new-born child. "When I neglect that 
mandate, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
mouth." 

The "Jingling Editor" especially endeared himself 
to the public heart by his abounding "exercise of the 
lighter attributes that go to make up a weekly." Since 

"Kings sometimes unbend, 
And Kings may jovial be," 

said he, "the poet likewise may let Pegasus frisk and 
caper through the fall oats of wit and ridicule." It 
was said that he could "coax more laughter out of an 
ink bottle into the Democrat than any two papers in 
the state could hold." "Why take the Danbury News 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 349 

or the Burlington Hawkeye," wrote a subscriber 
"when you can get the Democrat? The poor sigh to 
read it." The humor in his "sappy locals" made Old 
Sobersides clap his thighs. 

"Local ! Local ! Beware of the day 

When the Democrat snatches you out of the way." 

,i, 

A farmer "staggered into the office yesterday and 
laid a watermelon big as a barrel on our dissecting 
table." 

The picnic at Blacklidge Hills, with dainties spread 
on the green grass "has moored itself away in a golden 
port of memory, and there rides at anchor like a fairy 
galleon in the harbor of our dreams." 

Glancing along the table of a cheap boarding house 
where "a dozen herbivorous cannibals were performing 
on roast'n-ears as if they were so many French harps," 
the "Crank" was thrilled with "musical emotions a 
buttonwood orchestra could not produce." 

May glides onward into June; "the price of straw- 
berries is on the market ; each is worth a watermelon ; 
we have saved our money to pay off a mortgage." 

Last week the new patent jail broke again — "seven 
prisoners dripped out before the hole was discovered." 

"Give us the log jail with two rooms interfused, 
No friends but the darkness, no windows to loot, 
The old-fashioned jail that our grandfathers used." 

The pump on the east side of the Square that "for 
weeks has suffered from a throat affection, has been 
relieved and now wears a wind-pipe second to none in 
the county." 

The contents of the street sprinkler fell like a bless- 
ing on the thirsty street. "0 papa," said a little girl, 



350 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"Her cheek against the window-pane — 
'Yonder goes a man a-haulin' rain/ " 

To a band of serenaders: "Tackle the office again 
and we will give you a local long as the Moral Law." 
For a band of Bulgarians, however, the "Jingling 
Editor" had nothing but "a pan of hot pitch: come 
again and we'll drop a harrow on you." 

The weekly was humming. "Last week we counted 
twenty-three articles in an Exchange which had been 
taken from the Democrat without credit. We are con- 
sidering the propriety of sending out advanced sheets 
for clipping purposes. We printed six hundred extras 
for our last issue and fondly hoped to appease the pub- 
lic appetite ; but as the supply was ravenously gobbled 
by Saturday noon, we made a note, and will this week 
stretch our elastic capacity to its utmost tension. The 
Democrat is indeed nutritious." 

The "Poet at the Crank" seems to have been the 
agent of prosperity. In four months the circulation 
increased from four hundred to twenty-four hundred 
subscribers — a fact as mysterious to him as the ma- 
neuvers of the Muse. By June business round the 
Public Square was "flourishing in a soil of industry 
and enterprise." Townsmen and countrymen were 
scrambling on the "Rhyme Wagon" ; 

"On this side and on that 
They grapple with success 
Till smiling Fortune pets them 
With her tenderest caress." 

-"We are assuming stately proportions," the "Crank" 
wrote the Schoolmaster; "we are almost certain of 
the highest journalistic success. Yours always, Jay 
Whoop." 

In addition to a shower of jingles for the merchants, 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 351 

the first week of June the poet coaxed from his ink 
bottle a breezy advertising column for the Democrat: 

THE ANDERSON DEMOCRAT 

— is a — 

Good Little Paper 

— and you — 

Ought to be Kind to it! 

• ••••••• 

It ain't "the best paper in the State," or if 
it is, it won't acknowledge it, for it someway 
feels that the market is already glutted with 
that brand. No, it is simply 

good! 
and you ought to love it as you would a great, 
fat, laughing baby with a bunch of jingling 
keys. 

• ..♦•.•••• 

Its editors are all so gentle and artless! 
Their features are invariably wreathed in 
smiles, and their noble hearts hammer away 
at the blissful hours like a sheepskin band in 
a Fourth o' July delegation. Everybody seems 
impressed with the editors, and their amiable 
disposition is a perpetual sermon for the evil- 
disposed. 

The circulation of The Democrat is as large 
as any other county paper, and is increasing 
with a degree of velocity that lifts the hat of 
the oldest inhabitant. 

• ••»•••• 
The Democrat makes a specialty of news, 

and has a knack of securing more items of 
interest than it can possibly publish. In con- 
sequence, much of worth is unavoidably lost to 
the public, to say nothing of the thousand 
gems of purest ray serene that hide their bril- 
liance in the dark, unfathomed caves of the 
waste basket. 



352 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

The Democrat is the farmer's friend and 
never tires of telling him what he already 
knows — throwing in occasionally some hints 
of a simple device that will keep rats from 
climbing up the legs of his corn crib, or a 
recipe that will knock hog cholera higher than 
Kilgore's kite. Our recipes for botts are much 
sought after, and are alone worth the price of 
subscription. 



The Democrat's market reports are always 
lovely. This department is under the manage- 
ment of a lightning calculator. Occasional 
glimpses of the gifted gentleman may be 
caught through the periphery of figures in 
which he is constantly enveloped. He is the 
boon companion of the grain merchant — the 
confidential adviser of the stock buyer, and 
the bosom friend of the butcher, the baker 
and candlestick maker. 



And lastly, The Democrat is full to the 
brim of the creamiest literature of the day, 
and ever replete with the soul-searing utter- 
ances — "Hist! the blood-hounds are on me 
trail" and " 'Twas but the work of a mo- 
ment," and so forth, and so forth. 0, it's 
bully! And poetry! The Democrat keeps a 
poet constantly on hand who writes anything 
from Paradise Lost down to a candy-kiss 
verse. Odes, however, seem to be his strong- 
est inclination — in fact, he Ode so much when 
The Democrat employed him, that they had to 
advance his first month's salary. But he's 
frugal now and can wear a collar longer with- 
out turning than any other of his species in 
the State. 

SUBSCRIBE NOW 

AND MOURN AT LEISURE. 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 353 

While the Democrat was "going like everything," 
the poet wrote "Some Observations on Decoration 
Day" and printed his "Silent Victors." This and 
Henry Watterson's address at Nashville, Tennessee, 
the exchanges heralded as the chief "Memorial" events 
of the year. The printing of "poems of mark" how- 
ever was exceptional ; he was writing and saving them 
"for better distinction." 

The work he did on the Democrat staggers imagina- 
tion. What he accomplished on the "Rhyme Wagon," 
conservative judges considered a full summer's work. 
But that was secondary in quality if not in quantity. 
Formerly his poetic effusions were concealed with a 
few favorite books in his "reticule." When filled, its 
contents were transferred to a "telescope." Now he 
dignified his room with a trunk. Verily that trunk 
was the "Chinese Casket," save that its contents did 
not consist solely of the best that he wrote. Its con- 
fusion and disorder were beyond belief. It contained 
everything he wrote — jingle, normal English, doggerel 
and dialect ; pathos and humor, both prose and verse ; 
and show-bills and letters, and trinkets innumerable — 
all locked away in its musty confines, to drift perilously 
about, in the years to come, from hotel to hotel, from 
attics to job printing rooms and dark basements as the 
Fates decreed. No Chinese princess guarded the "Cas- 
ket" while Riley wrote for it — unless she did it art- 
fully in the guise of one of his numerous superstitions : 
namely that "he should destroy nothing he wrote:' In 
moments of inspiration he was aware of some force 
other than his own guiding his pen. It was not for 
him in those seasons of rapture to determine values. 
Save all, and let the public judge. 

The trunk contained the Golden Fleece of the seven- 



354 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

ties, original manuscripts of verse that a decade later 
first saw the light in book form in Neghborly Poems, 
Afterwhiles, and Rhymes of Childhood. Like the 
Koran, portions of those books "were written in frac- 
tions and flung pellmell into a casket." 

While on the staff of the Democrat, Riley's room — 
"No. 19— North Main Street— Up Stairs— In the Rear" 
— like its successors in Greenfield and Indianapolis 
was little more than a repository for what he wrote. 
It was his second "literary den." Callers commented 
on its vacant appearance, the meager supply of furni- 
ture, and the absence of pictures on the wall. He was 
the "Crank" in the daytime and usually wrote his 
jingle in the Democrat office — the front room on the 
same floor. At night he was the poet, and when sere- 
nades came they had to tackle the silence under the 
window in the rear. 

Here in his second "literary den" notable contribu- 
tions to Child Literature had their origin. Here the 
real child received "a just hearing in the world of 
letters." Among the first of the child poems to appear 
in the Democrat was "Willie" — not a pretentious 
poem, perhaps not intended by its author as a poem 
at all. But it contained enough merit to be revamped 
for the first child book (Rhymes of Childhood), 
in which it was entitled "Prior to Miss Belle's 
Appearance," and when the poet with such magical 
effect began to breathe the innocence of childhood 
across the footlights, "Willie" was given the last place 
on the program and for a long time retained that 
distinction in his public readings. "That child-sketch," 
said his comrade Nye, "makes him the best entertainer 
in the universe." 

In July the "vexations" began and by the end of 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 355 

August were hatching in such swarms that it took a 
lightning calculator to keep a record of them. Occa- 
sionally an exchange struck the "Crank" between the 
eyes with a pellet like this : "The Anderson Democrat 
complains that its neighbors are stealing its original 
poetry. The man who would steal Riley's poetry (in 
the language of General Dix) should be shot on the 
spot." 

"Complying with the request of numerous citizens," 
the "Jingling Editor," accompanied by his genial 
friend, William M. Croan of the Democrat, visited the 
Poor Farm "for the purpose of determining the real 
condition of the institution that had so long been the 
subject of unfavorable comment." What the "Crank" 
said in his editorial, headed in "Over the Hills 
to the Poor House," was "in utter disregard of all 
affectation and in strict adherence to facts. That the 
County of Madison should pay out seven thousand 
dollars a year to support an institution in such degrad- 
ing style was a blot on her escutcheon years could not 
erase." 

The indictment brought the Poor Farm overseer to 
town with a "gun" in his pocket. He met the "Crank" 
at the foot of the stairs, who, 

"Quaking like an aspen leaf 
Referred him to his journal Chief." 

Fortunately the chief editor was "somewhere down the 
street." When the overseer found him the sign in the 
zodiac was unfavorable for shooting and he returned 
to the Farm to let the sun set on his wrath. Mean- 
time the "Crank," like a thief in the night, had fled 
through an alley to the White River thickets, there to 
remain till Old Granny Dusk — 



S56 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"With her cluckety shoes, and her old black gown 
Came to pilot his shadow back into town." 

The anti-liquor "Crusaders" began to buzz about 
the "Jingling Editor" soon after the jolly Muse sang 
the praise of wine, though the production that gave 
particular offense was a burlesque on baseball. They 
saw more in it than the ridicule of a popular game. 
It was a libel on their favorite Temperance advocate, 
Luther Benson, whose arraignment of drink was as 
unforgetable as it was eloquent. From "the green 
and holy morning of life" he had one long struggle 
with the demon Rum. A specimen of his eloquence 
throws light on his friend's "imitation" : "In winning 
men from evil," says Benson, in one of his brilliant 
periods, "send me to the blasphemer of the holy Mas- 
ter's name ; send me to the forger, who for long years 
of cunning has defrauded his fellowmen; send me to 
the murderer, who lies in the shadow of the gallows, 
with red hands dripping with the blood of innocence; 
but send me not to the lost human shape whose spirit is 
on fire, and whose flesh is steaming and burning with 
the flames of hell. And why? Because his will is en- 
thralled in the direst bondage conceivable — his man- 
hood is in the dust, and a demon sits in the chariot of 
his soul, lashing the fiery steeds of passion to maniacal 
madness." 

Now the fact is that no son of misfortune was 
more fully aware of the truth in Benson's words than 
Riley. He, too, was in bondage ; he, too, was fighting 
a good fight. The last thing in the world he would 
have done would have been to give offense to a man 
"whose passion for liquor could slumber for weeks 
and then manifest itself with the force of a hurricane." 

As has been seen, Riley was a clever imitator, and 



ON THE TRIPOD OF THE DEMOCRAT 357 

he only intended, in his "imitation" of Benson, to 
praise the orator's eloquence. But participants in the 
"Murphy Movement" would not have it so— and, 
strange to say, there was a buzz of criticism among 
baseball zealots, too. The flaming caption in the 
Democrat, "BENSON OUT-BENSONED" with such 
sub-heads as "baseball catcher hopelessly insane" 

and "STRANGE HALLUCINATION OF A MADMAN" Were to 

say the least unfortunate. 

"Are you going to fill an umpire's grave or are 
you going to quit and be a man?" Baseball fans did 
not like it. 

With implied apologies to Benson his clever imitator 
poured a stream of eloquence through the lips of "a most 
remarkable specimen of lunacy, Tod Geary, the famous 
baseball catcher, who it will be remembered has, since 
May, been suffering mentally from an injury received 
on the head by the careless batting of Cy Thatcher." 
The way Geary "poured forth the stream" was rather 
dramatic. Taking his position, according to Riley, on 
a little square zinc that was tacked on the uncarpeted 
floor of the asylum, and unbuttoning his collar, and 
rolling up his sleeves, his "startling invective" (in 
part) fell on the ear as follows : 

"Talk to me of whisky!" he exclaimed; "Why, I 
tell you, men, if every crazy, crawling, writhing, hiss- 
ing serpent of the curse were let loose upon me now, I 
could take them to my bosom here, and fondle them and 
pet them and love them like so many rosy babies, if 
it would for one minute free me from the bloody fangs 
of the inflaming passion for Baseball. 

"Away far back along the dusky shadows of the 
past, as far away as History, the eagle-eyed, can fathom 
with her far-reaching vision, we find the charred and 



358 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

blackened symbols of the game of sport, that in old 
Babylonish days coaxed lazy laughter from the lips of 
kings, and tickled royal ribs with senseless mirth. The 
curse of this debasing appetite in man has been pam- 
pered, fed and fostered for so long, that to-day, two 
thousand millions of human beings are bound in loath- 
some bondage with the rustless chains of habit, and 
fettered and fastened down forever to a vice as hope- 
lessly damnable as that which first brought sin and 
death into the world, and locked with relentless bars of 
fate the gilded gates of Paradise. 

"No, I tell you, Baseball is a snare and a delusion. 
To-day the whole wide world writhes and blisters under 
the incandescent fury of this fiery element condensed 
and focused into a white-heat of passion that would 
hiss and boil and bubble over a slack tub of morality 
as wide and deep as the Atlantic Ocean." (A raking 
fire for the fans.) 

While lesser vexations were exchanging shots with 
the "Perspiring Poet," a more violent tempest was 
brewing. The baseball episode and the "hip pocket 
gun" were breezes in comparison with the storm that 
rose out of the unknown when the spirit of "the late 
lamented Poe" began to walk abroad. Since that was 
a blast of huge proportions, it is reserved for a chap- 
ter of its own. It was the sky-rocket that brought the 
"exercises" on the Democrat to a close. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE LITERARY TORPEDO 

THE "Jingling Editor" of the Democrat was wont 
to strain what usage terms poetic license. He 
did so in that racy sample of metrical porridge, 
"Thanksgiving Day at Henchley's." Gleefully ran the 
metrical stream:— 

"And this is how it happened some discrepancies befell 
At the late midsummer meeting in front of the hotel, 
Where, it seems, the folks assembled were concurring 

more to be 
In keeping with contention than the laws of harmony. 

"For there among the number were two rivals of the 
press, 

Who had photographed each other with prolonged ma- 
liciousness ; 

Who in their respective columns had a thousand words 
to spare 

For the other fellow just across the county Public 
Square. 

"And cheek by jowl together were two members of the 
bar, 
Politically, legally, and socially at war, 
Who denounced each other daily, and in every local 

phrase 
That could make the matter binding all the balance 
of their days. 

359 



360 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"And an ordinary actor, and an artist of renown, 
Whose cue, it seemed, for smiling was the little actor's 

frown ; 
And the most loquacious author my remembrance can 

recall, 
And a little bench-leg poet that couldn't talk at all." 

Riley fancied the notable occasion as at some little 
town on the "Bee Line." The little town was the big 
town of Anderson. The originals of the characters 
had participated in a series of discussions, serious and 
otherwise, which culminated in a whirlwind of criti- 
cism, the "shadowy disaster" (to borrow his friend 
Nye's figurative words) "wherein the 'Jingling Edi- 
tor's' feelings gave way beneath his feet and his heart 
broke with a loud report." 

The "bench-leg poet" was the "Poet at the Crank" ; 
the "loquacious author," an average chap about town 
with ambitions a trifle higher than the mediocrity of 
his performance. The "artist of renown" was the in- 
dustrious Samuel Richards, the Artist Comrade, who 
from week to week illustrated the jingling verse on the 
Democrat. His paintings caught the attention of John 
Ruskin. His "Evangeline," now in possession of the 
Detroit Art Museum, was exhibited in many cities. 
The "little actor" was "the twittering pilgrim from 
Oshkosh, v the Graphic Chum, who, after discovering 
the "Golden Girl" and wandering under moonless heav- 
ens with a "Rip Van Winkle Company," had returned to 
Anderson to enter a law office. Of the "two members of 
the bar," one was the late Captain W. R. Myers, who 
served his country as a soldier, and his commonwealth 
as secretary of state. He could spin a good story. He 
was not a stranger to eloquence. His voice was the 
envy of all who heard him, the eminent author of Ben- 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 361 

Hur once remarking that he "would consider his for- 
tune made if he possessed it." The "two rivals of the 
press" were, first, William M. Croan, the life-long 
friend to whom credit is due for Riley's employment on 
the Democrat; and, second, William Kinnard, the editor 
of the rival paper, the Anderson Herald, He was a 
young man of literary taste, had a subtle sense of 
humor ; and he could strike hard when he thought the 
offense demanded it. 

"Sing Ho ! for the Herald, that popular sheet ! 
The friend of the honest, the foe of the 'beat,' 
The pride of the good, the dread of the 'hard,' — ■ 
The dissonant ring of metallic Kinnard." 

There were also, on occasion, "two disciples from the 
medical fraternity" and, now and then, a "thankful 
pastor." The bone of contention was the recognition 
of young writers. The club usually met at Richards' 
Gallery, or the Democrat office — and rarely under the 
trees in the Court House yard. At the time "some dis- 
crepancies befell," there was a full attendance seated in 
the chairs near the sidewalk in front of the hotel, where 
the temperature of the night blended fervently with 
the heat of contention. 

"0 Stilwell House! Thou royal palace hall 
Whose arching doorway and inviting stair, 
To all who cast a happy anchor there, 
Is gracious boon and benison — We fall 
Upon our knees in thanks for all 
The culinary dainties of thy fare" — 

but most of all we thank thee for the nervous bush- 
fighting that preceded the great newspaper war known 
to literature as the "Leonainie Controversy." 

"Quit pushing your pencil and go to painting signs," 



362 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

said the rival editor, prodding the poet on his failure 
to receive eastern recognition. 

"I am not accepted by the magazines because I have 
no reputation," returned the poet. 

"You are not accepted because you do not write 
poetry the people want to read !" 

"No," continued the poet, focusing the fire of his eye 
on his rival, "I tell you, all that is required to make a 
poem successful and popular is to prove its author a 
genius known to fame." 

"The plausible opinion of a young writer," said the 
Captain, giving the editor a lift ; "you are wrong ; merit, 
not the name, makes a poem pass muster. Without 
name or credit, it travels like a gold piece on its in- 
trinsic worth, as valuable in New England as in Indi- 
ana. Taddle Your Own Canoe' has been sung thread- 
bare, and yet not one in a thousand knows its author 
is an Indiana woman. Who cares for the mint, so the 
jingle is genuine. Take the John Brown battle song — 
his soul goes marching on — the impetuous music that 
swept over battlefields in a night ; did that kindle with- 
in the heart of armies the swift desire for action be- 
cause its author bore an illustrious name? Or take the 
popular 'Rain on the Roof'— -» 

'Listen to the sweet refrain 
That is played upon the shingles 
By the patter of the rain.' — ■ 

Was the author of that known to fame ? Did he have 
to wait for the stamp of magazine approval before his 
poem received public recognition ? Who is the author ? 
Nobody knows." 

"Coates Kinney," answered the poet. 

"Well, nobody cares." 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 363 

"I care!" 

"There is the poem," pursued the Captain sagely; 
"it sang itself straight into the public heart." 

"Not straight," returned the poet; "it had to take the 
jog-trot route via the weeklies. Had the signature 
been Longfellow instead of Kinney, the poem would 
have flown on the wings of the wind." 

"The wisdom of Nestor !" exclaimed the loquacious 
author, approvingly. 

"You mean Tom Noddy !" retorted the editor. 
"A few years ago," continued the poet, diverting 
thought from the editor's rebuff, "Robert Bonner of 
the New York Ledger paid Henry Ward Beecher 
twenty-five thousand dollars for Norwood — that fabu- 
lous sum simply for a name. Had some anonymous 
author submitted the manuscript, the first five pages 
would have consigned it to the waste basket." 

"And the same Robert Bonner," added the artist, 
rallying to the aid of the poet, "paid Longfellow three 
thousand dollars for the 'Hanging of the Crane.' Had 
the author been unknown he would not have paid thirty 
dollars for it." 

"It would have been declined," said the poet. 

"Who reads the 'Hanging of the Crane' ?" asked the 
actor, derisively. 

"I do," answered the Captain. 

"Flapdoodle!" snapped the little actor, who, a loyal 
employee in the law office, was nevertheless that par- 
ticular night the Captain's antagonist. 

"An empty shell," added the loquacious author, but 
whether he meant the Captain or the poem was not ex- 
actly clear. 

"Beg your pardon, gentlemen," said the tranquil 
Captain ; "you fly the mark. At heart, the truth is this : 



364 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

the merit of a poem wins, whether its author be Long- 
fellow or Kinney, known or unknown. Permit me to 
quote a line from a poem some of you, perhaps, have 
read. Its author sees the azure eyes of children, 
dreamy and 

" 'Limpid as planets that emerge 
Above the ocean's rounded verge, 
Soft shining through the summer night/ 

Do you say that has no merit? Do you call that flap- 
doodle ?" 

"Heaven forbid!" interrupted the artist. 

"Beautiful !" returned the actor. 

"The gentleman is quite safe in that opinion," said 
the Captain; "it is beautiful. He will find it in the 
'Hanging of the Crane,' " — on which a titter of con- 
fusion went round the circle at the little actor's ex- 
pense. 

"You gentlemen claim," continued the Captain, 
warming up to the subject, "that a young writer does 
not receive the recognition he deserves. I claim he 
does. Nothing can keep talent down. The real 
trouble with the literature of to-day is that the stand- 
ard of criticism is not more severe. The way to liter- 
ary celebrity is made easy and smooth, not narrow and 
hard as in the days of the Scottish Reviewers — the 
result being this, that Father Time has to kill off car- 
goes of imitators and pretenders that never should 
have been permitted to afflict the public." 
• "We are wandering," said the poet. "Hear me : I 
tell you the trade-mark does influence the public, though 
the thing sold may be as juiceless and insipid as a 
sucked lemon. A poem over the signature of Bryant, 
Whittier or Tennyson has the preference though it may 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 365 

be inferior to 'The Rain on the Roof/ and a thousand 
other gems that fail to receive the golden opinion of 
the magazines. Established houses in the world of 
business have preference with the people. Reputation 
goes as far in literature as in commerce." 

"Yes," broke in the artist, emphatically, "and poems 
have been lauded to the skies in the heyday of a poet's 
fame that fell dead from the press when he was in 
obscurity." 

"Why," continued the artist, "does the publisher call 
to eminent authors for more when there is no more? 
When a well is pumped empty it would seem to accord 
with common sense to go where there is water — fresh 
water, if you please, gushing from a hitherto unknown 
spring. Hundreds of productions are flaunted daily in 
our faces because celebrated authors wrote them, copied 
and reproduced by the press till the market is choked 
with literary rubbish." 

"Unfit for the scrap-heap," interrupted the actor, 
swinging merrily from one side of the question to 
the other. "The stuff ought to be bucked and gagged, 
and rolled up like a ball of stale popcorn and thrown 
out of the car window." 

"At which unhappy juncture came a journalistic gust, 
Which the rival designated as a most atrocious thrust." 

"Where is the Red-eyed Law?" shrieked the loqua- 
cious author. 

"And the Grand Jury?" added the actor. "Con- 
spiracy!" the editor cries. On which the actor asks, 
"Who says so?" "Anybody!— I say so!" cries the 
editor. To which the artist adds sarcastically, "Oh, 
indeed!" Followed by the actor's blunt retort, "Yes, 



366 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

indeed!" And then — to give figurative meaning to 
the lines — 

'There was a shadowy remembrance of a group of 

three or four 
Who were seemingly dissecting another on the floor." 

By which time the sidewalk and the hotel lobby were in 
such a combustible state that it took an adjournment 
and the remainder of the night to cool things down. 

Such in substance (with a little spice from Dickens) 
is an epitome of the contention that gave birth 
to that curiosity known to literary history as the 
"Poe Poem" — the clash of words, so to speak, that 
preceded Riley's resolution to test his dictum, that 
a poem to be successful and popular must have as its 
author a genius known to fame. Things were happen- 
ing to justify his position. The graceful poem, "A 
Country Pathway," had recently been returned to its 
author a second time. Already Myron Reed was send- 
ing a Riley poem to a New York magazine. Once a 
year for six years the magazine declined the poem. Its 
author was unknown. The seventh year it was ac- 
cepted. Riley had then published his first book; he 
was at the door of an auspicious future. 

The Poe-Poem venture was an innocent collusion 
with deception. It never entered Riley's head 
to prolong the deceit. As soon as he had won 
his point, he would explain all to the satisfac- 
tion of all. "I wanted," said he, "to chuck the 
'poem in the face of my opponents as proof of my 
position." When older he usually evaded the subject 
but, if pressed for comment, was sometimes reminded 
of an innocent pioneer farmer, who had been haled be- 
fore a country squire for larceny. "I was arrested for 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 367 

stealin' shoats," said the f amer, "and the wust of it wuz, 
the prosecution come darn near provin' it." Riley was 
innocent of any desire to deceive the public perma- 
nently, "but the critics," said he, "came darn near prov- 
ing me a crafty Pecksniff." 

Riley was not the first in that hapless field. Authors 
before him had feigned the literary style of 
other writers. One hundred years before, Thomas 
Chatterton had published certain poems, which he 
claimed had been written by a monk in the fifteenth 
century. Riley celebrated the centenary of the event 
by a little counterfeit of his own. William Ireland, a 
London author, as told in his Confessions, had pro- 
duced a tragedy, purported to have been written by 
Shakespeare, which drew a crowded house at Drury 
Lane, Kemble playing the principal part. 

Nor was it Riley's first offense. He had been a party 
to jolly stratagems from his youth. In his school-days, 
as editor of the Criterion, he connived with the editor 
of the Amendment, the rival school paper, and wrote 
editorials for it in abuse of himself and the 
Criterion — "the badly bruised and shattered Criterion 
is now sinking lower and lower in the corrosive scale 
of self-esteem," and so forth. As the reader has seen, 
he was party to a big-sign ruse when his crafty confed- 
erate while painting the bridge at Anderson, fell from 
the ladder into the river. 

Having decided on the literary ruse, the first thing 
was the choice of an author. One of Reynolds' pleasant 
delusions was the fancy that the divinity of Michael 
Angelo inspired him in his productions — "he was ever 
calling on his name — invoking him by his works." 
Similar delusions haunted Riley's fancy; indeed, had 
been a source of diversion ever since he had read the 



368 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"British Books." When he wrote a "clever imitation" 
he invoked the influence of the author he was attempt- 
ing to reflect. "Looking over the list of the dead poets," 
said Riley, "I selected Poe because I thought he would 
enjoy the joke. He had been a little in the hoaxing 
line himself — his 'Balloon Hoax' for instance — and 
would not care if I took some liberty with his name." 

A second reason for choosing Poe for the ruse was 
Riley's fellow-feeling for the author and his style. He 
liked Poe's insistence upon "an even, metrical flow in 
versification." He thought of him as "one looking from 
an eminence rather than from the ordinary level of 
humanity." There was something — he had not experi- 
enced it to Poe's pitch of frenzy — something by which 
he more fully comprehended the true proportions of 
"that marred and broken individuality, that nature so 
sensitively organized and so rarely developed, under 
circumstances exceptionally perilous and perverting." 
He sympathized with Poe's hopeless despair. 

The "Jingling Editor" was interested in the fact that 
"The Bells" had been composed and finished in the year 
of his birth. While "grinding business to an edge," he 
had had a little fun, at Poe's expense, with some dry 
goods merchants, the Bell Brothers. (Doubtless Poe 
did not enjoy the joke, but the "Crank" was not con- 
sidering that phase of it then.) 

happy bells! 

,What a list of rare inducements their advertising tells ! 

How they dance adown the gamut 

To the lowest of the less, 

And crowd it on and ram it 

Through the gangway to success ! 

And unrivaled in low prices, 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 369 

How they lift and loom alone 

Far above the low devices 

And the tricks the trade has known ; 

And even mounting higher 

Up the ringing rounds of fame, 

How they lift the eager buyer 

To an altitude the same, 

Till the customers transported 

With the glory they have courted, 

Throw their happy-haunted hats 

To the bats — bats — bats 

And hop and whoop and howl 

And prance around and yowl 

Till they drive the chorus crazy with their suicidal yells 

To the tintinnabulations of the Bells! Bells! Bells! 

Choosing an author for the ruse was one thing, writ- 
ing a poem for it a different and more difficult thing. It 
was "writing to order," a thing that Riley seldom suc- 
cessfully did. It was a mad venture. 

In April, soon after his arrival in Anderson, he had 
written "Orlie Wilde." He thought of that "fanciful 
fishermaid." 

.... "He saw her fly 

In reckless haste adown a crag, 
Her hair a-flutter like a flag 
Of gold that danced across the strand 
In little mists of silver sand." 

The marine myth however scarcely met the require- 
ments. It was Poe-ish, in a way, Poe-ish in theme, but 
he could not make it Poe-ish in poetic structure. After 
wrestling with the poem several nights in the Democrat 
office, Riley spent a night at the home of his Graphic 
Chum, the old boarding house on Bolivar Street, where- 
in originated "The Object Lesson" and other bantlings 
of his Graphic days. "On that solemn summer night" 
(Saturday, July 7, 1877) "I could not sleep," said he. 



370 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"I fancied a man idly walking about in the darkness 
waiting for the birth of his child — then the birth and 
the murmur of something from the Heaven-sent 
visitor, followed by the father's interpretation of the 
murmur as a message to him. While my chum snored 
away in peace, I rose, seating myself in my bed-gown 
by a window. I made a rough draft of the poem that 
had been floating like nebula in the chaos of my 
thought. From the sky over Anderson there came the 
idea to make the 'little lisper' float away as a dream on 
the wings of night." He entitled the poem "Leonainie" 
and made few changes in the first draft. 

"Leonainie — Angels named her ; 
And they took the light 
Of the laughing stars and framed her 
In a smile of white." 

In this Poe mystery there was more than appeared 
on the face of it. "Leonainie" was not only mysterious 
to the public but to its author as well. 

"How I found it, caught it, or came by it, 
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to 
learn." 

A rival editor, quoting a Riley remark, said it was 
a "poetical fungus which sprang from the decay of high 
thoughts." 

That it was phrased in the morbid, fantastic vein, 
characteristic of Poe, impartial judges conceded 
from the first. That the poem had defects was also 
conceded. "The measure is faulty," said its author, 
"and there are faulty lines in it — there purposely to 
chafe the intolerable conceit of the critics, for example, 

Heaven's glory seemed adorning 
Earth with its esteem." 



THE LITERAKY TORPEDO 371 

"If Poe wrote that," said a Cincinnati critic after 
"Leonainie" was printed, "it was when he was in pina- 
fores." Other critics made similar comments, one ob- 
serving that "esteem ruined 'Leonainie.' It is a fatal 
word in every poem where it is made to rhyme." Mean- 
while the author chuckled to himself as did the author 
of the "Raven" when he confused the critics of Boston. 

"Leonainie" contained one line that covered a multi- 
tude of literary sins; that the critics could not decry. 
A host of readers saw imperishable beauty in "God 
smiled and it was morning." Many hazarded the 
prophecy that that line would live with such immortal 
verse as "God is sifting out the hearts of men before 
His judgment seat," or "The paths of glory lead but 
to the grave." 

Although "Leonainie" was practically finished, the 
venture was still in doubt. One day the poet was for 
it, another day against it. 

But his ambition called to him. If his verse had 
merit, it should have recognition. He would take the 
risk: 

"I have set my life upon the cast, 
And I will stand the hazard of the die." 

Meantime he was considering a vehicle for the ruse. 
To print it in the Democrat, where there had already 
appeared a surplus of curiosities, meant that the pub- 
lic would immediately declare the poem a fake. A few 
days prior, the editor of the Rokomo Dispatch, John 0. 
Henderson "had fretted himself to the verge of insan- 
ity," according to an exchange, in a mad endeavor to 
decipher the incomprehensible jingle in "Craque- 
odoom," whose tattoo on the roof of the dusk, the Artist 
Chum made more abstruse by a spectral illustration 



372 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

representing the crankadox, a ghoulish reptile with a 
mammoth fin and a loop in its tail, standing with one 
foot on the horn of the moon. 

"The quavering shriek of the fly-up-the-creek 
Was fitfully wafted afar 

To the queen of the Wunks as she powdered her cheek 
With the pulverized rays of a star." 

"What does it mean ?" asked Henderson, commenting 
in the Dispatch on "the gifted" J. W. Riley. "It is the 
most weird piece of poetic thought we have ever read. 
It reads like an effusion of some poetic genius of the 
fable age in which Mother Goose wrote her melodies." 
The comment pleased the "Jingling Poet" immensely, 
and he promptly thanked the editor for "the first 
friendly hand extended him in that period of impene- 
trable gloom." The result was the choice of the Kp- 
komo Dispatch for the ruse — and the following letter 
breaking the news to the editor : 

OFFICE OF THE ANDERSON DEMOCRAT 
Todisman & Croan, Proprietors 

Anderson, Indiana, July 23, 1877. 
Editor Dispatch — Dear Sir : 

I write to ask a rather curious favor of you. The 
dull times worry me, and I yearn for something to stir 
things from their comatose condition. Trusting to find 
you of like inclination, I ask your confidence and as- 
sistance. 

This idea has been haunting me : — I will prepare a 
poem — carefully imitating the style of some popular 
American poet, deceased, and you may "give 
it to the world for the first time" through the 
columns of your paper, prefacing it in some ingenious 
manner, with the assertion that the original manu- 
script was found in the album of an old lady living 
in your town — and in the handwriting of the poet 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 373 

imitated — together with signature, etc., etc. — you 
can fix the story— only be sure to clinch it so as to 
defy the scrutiny of the most critical lens. If 
we succeed, and I think sheer audacity sufficient 
capital to assure that end, — after "working up" the 
folks, and smiling over the encomiums of the Press, 
don't you know ; we will then "rise up William Riley," 
and bu'st our literary balloon before a bewildered and 
enlightened world ! ! ! 

I write you this in all earnestness and confidence, 
trusting you will favor the project with your valuable 
assistance. It will be obvious to you why I do not use 
our paper here. Should you fall in with the plan, write 
me at once, and I will prepare and send the poem in 
time for your issue of this week. Hoping for an early 
and favorable response, I am 

Very truly yours, 
J. W. Riley. 

Had the letter dropped from a balloon the Dispatch 
had not been more surprised. Its editor, an energetic, 
enthusiastic young man, was about Riley's age. He 
appreciated good literature, and particularly the poetic 
gifts of his new friend, so his prompt answer was to be 
expected: — 

THE DISPATCH 

Kokomo, Indiana, July 23, 1877. 
J. W. Riley, 
My Dear Sir: 

Your favor of this date is just received. Your idea 
is a capital one and is cunningly conceived. I assure 
you that I "tumble" to it with eagerness. You arc 
doubtless aware that newspaper men, as a rule, would 
rather sacrifice honor, liberty, or life itself, than to 
deviate from the paths of truth— but the idea of getting 
in a juicy "scoop" upon the rural exchanges, causes me 
to hesitate, consider, yea, consent to this little act of 
journalistic deception. Yes, my dear Riley, I am with 
you boots and soul. But hadn't I better forestall the 



374 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

poem by a "startling announcement" or something of 
the sort one week before its publication? The public 
would then be on the tiptoe of expectancy and so forth. 
I merely offer this as a suggestion. We would be hardly 
able to publish the poem, if of any length, this week. 
Copy is well in for Thursday's issue now, save local 
paragraphs. Send copy as soon as you can and we can 
print next week. If you like, you may also write the 
preface as you have indicated. Perhaps you could do 
it better than I. I enclose this letter in a plain envelope 
to disarm suspicion* Let me hear from you. 

Fraternally, 

J. 0. Henderson. 
Mum's the word. 

For a fortnight events happened rapidly. ! July 
twenty-seventh, the editor acknowledged receipt of 
the poem with suggestions for its publication. "It is 
really Poe-etical," he wrote, "a matchlessly conceived 
poem. It certainly would not detract from Foe's genius 
to father the fugitive. I assure you it is withal a 
marvelous and rare creation, honoring you and the 
State as well. Have not yet matured my story, but will 
have it in due time." 

Riley's mind did indeed brim with "startling an- 
nouncements," but scarcely had he prepared one when 
he weakened and tried another. The thought of after- 
claps took the granite out of his courage. At the last 
he asked the Kokomo editor to "weave the fabric in his 
own loom. Select the most feasible plan," he added, 
"and nip it at once; were I to prepare the story, the 
-trick might be betrayed in some peculiarity of compo- 
sition." 

He first thought of an old washerwoman, who should 
have an old album or an old book of some kind from 
which a blank leaf could be torn. Then he remembered 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 375 

that an old woman could not keep a secret. When in- 
terviewed by the curious she was likely to speak out at 
the wrong time and let the ruse down prematurely. To 
avert this danger he suggested an old wood-sawyer. If 
the old chap did not have an old book, the editor was 
to get one, and when the curious called to see it, as they 
most certainly would, they were to be told that it had 
been sent to W. D. Ho wells of the Atlantic, or some 
other eminent critic, for inspection. 

But the most "startling announcement" of all was 
this: — In a dark corner of a walnut woods, some- 
where in the neighborhood of Cornstalk Post Office, 
on Wild Cat Creek, Howard County, obscured by 
the rocks of the Devonian Age, the editor of the Dis- 
patch was to find a cave in the side of a hill. (It has 
been remarked there is not a hill in the county big 
enough for a prairie dog; there is, however.) The edi- 
tor while out hunting was to get lost in a terrific storm 
and grope his way through the dismal darkness to a 
faint light in the cave, where he was to find a hunch- 
backed dwarf, who grudgingly was to give him shelter 
from the storm. While the hermit prepared a meal 
over a bed of coals on the rocky floor, the editor was 
to find an old book on a rickety table, and turning 
through it was to espy on a fly leaf the lines in manu- 
script of an old poem signed E. A. P. The hermit, very 
uncommunicative at first, was at last to inform the edi- 
tor the book had been brought from Virginia. 

A very spectacular tale, but not at all plausible, in the 
opinion of the editor. He was to be the hero and go 
out hunting—- he "had never handled a gun in his life." 
He was to get lost in a storm in his own county, and 
take refuge in a hermit's den — another impossible 
thing. The editor promptly rejected the scheme as 



376 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"a dead give-away of the plot," and instead took into 
his confidence a meat merchant of Kokomo. Having 
eliminated the impossible plans, they determined on 
the following story, which was printed with the poem 
in the Dispatch, August 2, 1877 : 

Posthumous Poetry 



A Hitherto Unpublished Poem of the Lamented Edgar 

Allan Poe— Written on the Fly Leaf of an Old 

Book Now in Possession of a Gentleman of 

This City. 



The following beautiful posthumous poem from the 
gifted pen of the erratic poet, Edgar Allan Poe, we be- 
lieve has never before been published in any form, 
either in any published collection of Poe's now extant, 
or in any magazine or newspaper of any description; 
and until the critics shall show conclusively to the con- 
trary, The Dispatch shall claim the honor of giving it 
to the world. 

That the poem has never before been published, and 
that it is a genuine production of the poet whom we 
claim to be its author, we are satisfied from the circum- 
stances under which it came into our possession, after 
a thorough investigation. Calling at the house of a 
gentleman of this city the other day, on a business 
errand, our attention was called to a poem written on 
the blank fly leaf of an old book. Handing us the book 
he observed that it (the poem) might be good enough 
to publish, and that if we thought so, to take it along. 
Noticing the initials, E. A. P., at the bottom of the 
poem, it struck us that possibly we had run across a 
"bonanza," so to speak, and after reading it, we asked 
who its author was, when he related the following bit 
of interesting reminiscence : He said he did not know 
who the author was, only that he was a young man, 
that is, he was a young man when he wrote the lines 
referred to. He had never seen him himself, but heard 
his grandfather, who gave him the book containing the 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 377 

verses, tell of the circumstances and the occasion by 
which he, the grandfather, came into possession of the 
book. His grandparents kept a country hotel, a sort of 
a wayside inn, in a small village called Chesterfield, 
near Richmond, Va. One night, just before bedtime, a 
young man, who showed plainly the marks of dissipa- 
tion, rapped at the door and asked if he could stay all 
night, and was shown to a room. When they went to 
his room the next morning to call him to breakfast, he 
had gone away and left the book, on the fly leaf of 
which he had written the lines given below. 

Further than this our informant knew nothing, and 
being an uneducated, illiterate man, it was quite nat- 
ural that he should allow the great literary treasure to 
go for so many years unpublished. 

That the above statement is true, and our discovery 
no canard, we will take pleasure in satisfying anyone 
who cares to investigate the matter. The poem is writ- 
ten in Roman characters, and is almost as legible as 
print itself, although somewhat faded by the lapse of 
time. Another peculiarity in the manuscript which we 
notice is that it contains not the least erasure or a 
single interlineated word. We give the poem ("Leo- 
nainie") verbatim — just as it appears in the original. 

Nearly a score of years later the poet included the 
poem in his volume, Armazindy. 

"Dear, dear Henderson — and I have a notion to call 
you darling/* wrote Riley on reading the Dispatch. 
"The 'Leonainie' introductory is superb. As for the 
leading paragraph, a neater, sweeter lie was never ut- 
tered. I fancy Poe himself leans tiptoe over the walls 
of Paradise and perks an eager ear to listen and be- 
lieve." Again he cautioned the Dispatch to guard "the 
imposition with jealous care. Let no one know it — 
not even your mother-in-law, if you possess so near and 
dear a relative. I shake your hand in silence and in 
tears. In the language of Artemus Ward— 'I am here 
<— I think so — Even of those.' " 



378 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

All the Dispatch had to do was to smile inwardly, 
with "a lack-lustre, dead blue eye," and await the un- 
folding of a curious future. Have faith in the "orphan 
venture." Await developments. Eventually the 
"euchred public would not only forgive, but render 
homage." 

"Mum was the word" at Anderson. The author of 
"Leonainie" did not chalk things on the walls, nor cry 
them on the streets. He was a sort of Mr. Tulkinghorn, 
the "Sphinx," knowing all sorts of things and never 
telling them. July twenty-fifth, he admitted to the 
"circle of secrecy" Mrs. D. M. Jordan of the Richmond 
Independent — "that charming child of song whose 
melody ripples round a happy world." And he did 
wisely. Throughout the gloom then gathering just 
beyond the horizon, she was his steadfast champion. 
Her pen, as well as her eyes, was capable of great 
expression. 

Good Friend (Riley wrote) : I write — not in answer 
to your letter, for I haven't time to do that justice 
now — but to ask of you a very special favor. 

I have made arrangements with the editor of the 
Kokomo Dispatch that he shall publish the poem "Leon- 
ainie," under the guise of its being the work of Poe 
himself. He, Henderson, is to invent an ingenious 
story of how the original manuscript came into his pos- 
session, and when it appears with a hurrah from the 
Dispatch I shall copy and comment upon it in the Demo- 
crat — in a way that will show that I have no complicity, 
and I want you to review it, if you will, favorably, in 
the Independent — I don't want you to really admire it 
— but I do want you to pretend to, and eulogize over it 
at rapturous length, and as though you were assured 
it was in reality the work of Poe himself — as the Dis- 
patch will claim. Our object is to work up the "Press" 
broadcast if possible, and then to unsack the feline, and 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 379 

let the "secret laughter that tickles all the soul" erupt 
volcanically. The "Ring" around the literary torpedo 
as it now lies includes but four persons, including your- 
self, and it must be the unwavering resolve of every 
member to hold the secret safely fastened in the bosom 
quartette till time shall have ripened the deception, and 
the slow match has reached the touch-hole of success. 

Now will you do this for me? Write at once, for I 
shall not be thoroughly happy till the answer which I 
believe, in your great kindness, you will give, reaches 
me. 

How are you, anyway? Happy, I trust, as am I to 
sign myself 

Your friend, 

J. W. Riley. 

The original "ring around the torpedo" (persons to 
be intrusted with the secret) included thirteen name3. 
Riley discovering the unlucky number, reduced it, but 
the sequel shows he failed to eliminate the right man. 

Immediately on printing and distributing the 
"Leonainie" issue, the Dispatch editor reprinted 
the poem with a notice calling attention to 
it on small slips of paper which he mailed to 
newspapers and magazines (including Scribner's, 
Harper's, and the Atlantic) with request that they 
print the poem and give credit to the Dispatch. He 
added that the old book containing the manuscript was 
in his possession, and further that he would give ex- 
perts in chirography the privilege of examining it. 
That was the clever stroke that "excited the comment 
of the newspaper world." "Leonainie" would not have 
gone "the rounds of the press like wildfire," had the 
enterprising editor not mailed the slips to "every State 
in the Union." 

The second day after publication came an inquiry 
from the "Sphinx" at Anderson : 



380 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Editor Dispatch, 
Dear Sir — 

Some literary thug has gobbled our Dispatch contain- 
ing your Poe discovery. Please send me two or three 
extra copies. What does it mean? Are you in ear- 
nest? I would like to enter into a correspondence with 
you regarding it, for even though you be the victim of 
a deception I would be proud to know your real author. 
Do I understand from your description that the manu- 
script is written like printed letters? Write me full 
particulars and I will serve you in response in any way 
in my power. 

Yery truly, 

J. W. Riley. 

The "Sphinx" might be garrulous and propose rid- 
dles outside the "circle of secrecy" — but never a word 
within it At first he was content to say (editorially 
in the Democrat) that the Kokomo Dispatch of yester- 
day "startles the nation and the hull creation" by pub- 
lishing a posthumous Poe Poem, "clamorously claiming 
the honor of its first presentation to the world. Lack of 
space prevents us from further remark; but we will 
say, however, that of all the Nazareths now at large, 
Kokomo is the last from which we would expect good to 
come." 

While "things were developing" Riley bethought him- 
self of a mistake Walter Scott had made in not prais- 
ing the Waverley novels. Scott's silence was proof to 
Edinburgh that he wrote them. To avert a like 
mistake Riley appeared at length editorially in 
his own paper, — not however till the knowing 
had begun to think upon his silence with suspicion, 
particularly the editor of the rival paper, the Herald, 
who expected "a rhapsody of jealous censure from 
the jaunty sheet across the way." Under the caption, 
"The Poet Poe in Kokomo," Riley considered in detail 



*f < I 




Anderson Democbat Offk i 




Old Cottage on Bolivar Street 
Where "Leonainie" and "The Object Lesson" first saw the light 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 381 

the merits and the faults of "Leonainie," occasionally 
deriding the "Poe-ish pretensions" and their claim to 
verity. He quoted from the "juicy introduction" (in 
the Dispatch) and then paid his compliments to the en- 
raptured editor who had gone into "voluminous detail 
on the chance discovery of the manuscript in an old 
book now in possession of an illiterate resident of Ko- 
komo. That gentleman states that his grandpa gave 
him the hook and that it came into the grandpa's pos- 
session while in Chesterfield, Virginia. According to 
the story, a wild-eyed, dissipated young man had 
stopped in a tavern over night and by morning had 
flown, having scrawled in the old book over the initials 
E. A. P., a curious poem. 'Only this and nothing 
more/ " 

Riley frankly admitted, editorially, that on reading 
the Dispatch he was inwardly resolved not to be start- 
led. He had thought to ignore "Leonainie" entirely; 
but "a sense of justice due — if not to Poe, to the poem" 
—induced him to let slip a few remarks. 

"We have given the matter," he continued, "not a 
little thought ! and in what we shall have to say regard- 
ing it, we will say with purpose far superior to preju- 
dicial motives, and with the earnest effort of beating 
through the gloom a pathway to the light of truth." 

Passing by "the many assailable points regarding the 
birth and late discovery of the poem," he considered 
first the authenticity of its authorship. "That a poem 
contains some literary excellence," he said, "is no as- 
surance that its author is a genius known to fame, for 
how many waifs of richest worth are now afloat upon 
the literary sea, whose authors are unknown, and whose 
nameless names have never marked the graves that hid 
their hidden value from the world. Let us look deeper 



382 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

down, and pierce below the glare and gurgle of the sur- 
face and analyze the poem and Poe's work at its real 
worth." 

And this, Riley proceeded to do. The theme was one 
that Poe would not likely select. "Poe had a positive 
aversion to children, and especially to babies." The 
second stanza contained Poe's peculiar bent of thought 
but in addition "that weird faculty of attractively com- 
bining with the delicate and beautiful, the dread and 
repulsive — a power most rarely manifest, and quite be- 
yond the bounds of imitation." The third stanza was 
secondary in thought and the fourth in part mediocre. 
It was fair to conclude, since "Poe avoided the name of 
Deity," that he did not write the last stanza. 

"To sum up the poem as a whole we are at some loss," 
Riley concluded. "It most certainly contains rare at- 
tributes of grace and beauty ; and although we have not 
the temerity to accuse the gifted Poe of its authorship, 
for equal strength of reason we cannot deny that it is 
his production ; but as for the enthusiastic editor of the 
Dispatch we are not inclined, as yet, to the .belief that 
he is wholly impervious to the wiles of deception." 

There was a flourish of county paper trumpets in 
that first fortnight of August, 1877. The two innocent 
deceivers were kept wide awake. It was hurry and 
hurrah. As Riley put it : 

"On with the ruse ! let fakes be unconfined : 
No sleep till morn when bards and critics meet 
To chase the flaming hours with flying feet." 

In a brief note, he hopes the Dispatch is not losing 
faith. "God bless us, we are certainly at the very 
threshold of success. Hold the fort ! If we could talk 
for one square hour we could make ourselves believe it." 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 383 

August thirteenth brought another letter from the Dis- 
patch. "Your two letters of Saturday received," wrote 
the editor. "I would like to visit you but cannot get 
away. Have you seen notice in New York World, Tri- 
bune, Post; Chicago Tribune, Inter-Ocean; Cincinnati 
papers, Courier Journal? I am saving all notices and 
will publish them next week. Your notice in the Demo- 
crat is capital ; so is Herald's but it sounds like you all 
over." (The editor made a good guess ; the plot was 
thickening. It was Riley all over: one editor of the 
Herald had been admitted to the "ring around the tor- 
pedo.") "Our plot is developing rapidly," the Dispatch 
editor continued ; "the ball is fairly in motion and will 
not stop until it has reached every state in the Union. 
No article was ever published in a country paper in 
this State that has had such a run as this has and will 
have. The end is not yet. I am anxious to see Atlantic, 
Scribner's, and so forth. They are the critics. Send 
all extracts you find." 

August sixteenth the Dispatch had just received a 
letter from William F. Gill of Boston, who had written 
a new life of Poe. Gill had the manuscript of "The 
Bells" and could identify the Kokomo manuscript by it. 
"What shall I write him?" asks the Dispatch. "Where 
is the original manuscript? Notices still come from the 
South. Send me all your clippings." 

Where was the original manuscript, indeed ? In the 
issue of August sixteenth, the Dispatch referred to the 
old book containing the manuscript, inadvertently say- 
ing that "the book — the property of a gentleman of this 
city — is now in our possession." This, Riley good- 
naturedly considered "the fatal blunder of the Dispatch 
editor." Within , a week the editor discovered that 
Riley, swayed by an old tie of friendship rather than 



384 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

by good judgment, had admitted to the "circle of 
secrecy" one who could not keep a secret. That was 
Riley's "fatal blunder," and as the sequel proved, the 
"more fatal of the two." 

The consequences of the editor's mistake were visited 
on him immediately. There was no manuscript. Poe's 
biographer offered to deposit any amount in Boston 
for its safe return. The editor turned a deaf ear to 
his plea. Representatives from the city dailies wrote 
about it and "literary folks called in droves to see it." 
"What shall we do?" wailed the editor. "Hold them off 
a few days more," wrote Riley. "It certainly is as easy 
to make a manuscript as it was to write the poem that 
creates the sensation." 

Then there was a stir in Anderson. Two friends, W. 
J. Ethell and Samuel Richards, who were never far 
from their "jingling" comrade when he was driven into 
a corner, worked unceasingly on a manuscript, imitat- 
ing Poe's handwriting from a facsimile of the original 
manuscript of "The Bells." The facsimile did not con- 
tain all the letters required and Richards, who made 
the final draft, had necessarily to do some inventing. 
And he did it well. "In some way," said Riley, "my 
friend caught the spirit of the whole vocabulary, fur- 
nishing a result that bewildered many notable and ex- 
acting critics." Edmund Clarence Stedman remarked 
that it was the best imitation of Poe he had seen. Rich- 
ards copied the lines on the fly leaf of an old Ainsworth 
Dictionary procured from a law office and bought origi- 
nally at a second-hand bookstore on Delaware Street, 
Indianapolis. This done, Riley deftly concealed the old 
book in brown wrapping paper and boarded the Pan 
Handle accommodation for Kokomo. "That accommo- 
dation," said he, "never carried a more restless pas- 



AN 

ABRIDGMENT 



AINSWORTH'S DICTIONARY, 
ISn&ltefi attfc Eaten, 

DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS. 



Br 
THOMAS MORELL, D. D. 

CAEEFULLY CORRECTED AND IMPROVED FROM THE LAST 
LONDON QUARTO EDITION BY JOHN CAREY, LL. D. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY URIAH HUNT & SON, 
M. 44 JV. Fourth Street, 

AID FOR SALS BY BOOKSELLERS GENERALLY THBOUGBOOT THE 
VtflTEO STATES. 



386 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

senger. I was so fearful of detection, a shadow scared 
me. I was even destitute of Dutch courage. 

'Like one that on a lonesome road 
Doth walk in fear and dread, 
And having once turned round walks on 
And turns no more his head, 
Because he knows a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread.' 

A thousand things I thought might happen. A wag 
might snatch the dictionary from me. I might drop 
dead of apoplexy. The train might be ditched by the 
Jabberwock and my name might be found among the 
dead. The brakeman and train-boy might bury me and 
my old book on the spot. There was some consolation 
in that. That would be a bona fide secret. Never yet, 
so history shows, has the grave unsacked a feline." 

On that trip to Kokomo Riley began to note what 
the car wheels were saying. He called it the "agony 
of the rails." All the way over they repeated the du- 
bious refrain, "How fur is it? — how fur is it? — how fur 
is it?" Sometimes that refrain, "stoical and relentless 
as fate, grew so agonizing that it would lift him from 
his seat and drag him up and down the aisle." 

"Thirty-five miles," said Riley, recalling the experi- 
ence, "and every mile a reach of torment." Riley had 
doubts that the ruse would succeed even after his 
friend had written in imitation of Poe's hand. This 
accounts for his gloomy state of feeling on the way 
to Kokomo. 

"One day," said Mr. Henderson, long years after, 
when serving his commonwealth as auditor of state, 
"one day I was well-nigh crazy worrying over the ab- 
sence of the manuscript. It was a hot evening and I 
was alone in the Dispatch office, when a red-mustached, 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 387 

rough-looking young fellow, far from the sleek literary- 
man he is to-day, came in and introduced himself as 
J. W. Riley. That was our first meeting. The surprise 
was mutual. Both expected to meet an older man. 'The 
burden is fallen from me !' I exclaimed, when I saw that 
dictionary. Well, we held a council of war. Things 
were moving along swimmingly. I remained at my 
desk ; Riley went for a few days' rest to Greenfield. ,, 

Before leaving Kokomo Riley made a call on his 
young friend of the Kokomo Tribune, Charles Phillips. 

"What are you doing here ?" asked Phillips. 

"Over to see that manuscript." 

"Bloomy moonshine !" returned Phillips, contemp- 
tuously. "They have no manuscript. Got it under 
lock and key, I suppose!" he added with withering 
irony. 

Riley was disinclined to talk where others could 
hear. "Have you a room where we could be alone ?" 
he whispered. They went upstairs, where, on entering 
a room, Riley cautiously looked round, peeped into the 
closet and locked the door and windows. Each moment 
Phillips' curiosity grew less controllable. "I don't like 
these flickerings of light on the wall," said Riley. 
"They seem to take the shape of letters and words. 
Are you sure no one can hear? Are there no cracks 
in the wall?" 

Being assured, a solemn silence followed — it seemed 
an hour to Phillips— while Riley still kept peeping here 
and there about the room. Finally, leaning against the 
wa ll__" a picture of despair with tears brimming over 
his eyelids,"— he said, "I came— I came all the way 
from Anderson to see that manuscript." Phillips 
thought from the tone of disappointment in his voice 
that the Dispatch had refused to let him see it. Sud- 



388 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

denly advancing to Phillips, he whispered with meas- 
ured breath and slow — -"They have — they have — yes, 
sir — they have the manuscript." 

Then he went into details concerning the authentic- 
ity of the poem. The Dispatch should guard it with 
jealous care. "The dear old book," he said, "is kept 
under double lock and key. It was only after tearful 
pleadings that I was permitted a sight of it. I heaved 
a sigh of relief when the faded volume was once more 
locked in the safe." 

"Leoloony — Leoloony," repeated Phillips, as they de- 
scended the stairs. "Leoloony," repeated his guest at 
parting. On the train to Greenfield "Leoloony" came 
prancing from Riley's fancy in foolish jingle : 

"Leoloony, angels called her; 
And they took the bloom 
Of the tickled stars and walled her 
In her nom de plume" 

"How this world is given to lying !" remarked Phil- 
lips, a few days later when he discovered the real 
situation. Recalling those artificial tears, and the 
night and the noiseless presence of invisible spectators, 
he thought Riley should seek his fortune on the stage. 
"He could make," said Phillips, "one of the matchless 
actors of his time." 

While Riley was recruiting at Greenfield, the Dis- 
patch was living in clover. The editor had full pos- 
session of the field. Each day brought "fresh evidence 
of success. The New York Herald had nibbled, and 
the New York Sun. Sailing before the wind, 'Leonai- 
nie' was destined to see and be known in distant lands." 
Whether favorably or unfavorably known was not 
nearly so important as to make the "big dailies stand 
on their heads and bark furiously." "A new-found 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 389 

poem," said the Nashville American, "has been charged 
to Edgar A. Poe. If that gentleman ever wanders any- 
where in spirit, he will surely pay his respects to the 
scalp of the Indiana man that wrote it." "The poem 
bears no internal evidence of Poe's paternity," said the 
Indianapolis News. "Romantic enough," said the 
Brooklyn Eagle, — "looks altogether like romance. The 
story is wild enough to have been written under the 
influence of Egyptian whiskey." "The unfortunate 
Poe," said the Baltimore American, "was doubtless 
guilty of many indiscretions, but it is hard to suppose 
that in his most eccentric moods he would have at- 
tempted to foster upon his fame the name of 'Leonai- 
nie.' " "A poem is going the rounds of the press," said 
the Philadelphia Commonwealth, "having been discov- 
ered among the rubbish of a Hoosier literary club by 
a lunatic of Kokomo. Two or three lines will show its 
spirit and style : 

'And they made her hair of gloomy 
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy 
Moonshine, and they brought her to me 
In the solemn night/ 

The gin mills of Maryland and the Old Dominion never 
turned out liquor bad enough to debase the genius of 
Poe to the level of that verse. It is a libel on his 
memory to hint of such doleful idiocy." 

The big dailies did "bark furiously" — no doubt of 
that. From Boston through Washington to Mobile and 
New Orleans, and back through Richmond and across 
the continent to San Francisco, the comment was about 
equally divided between hisses and applause. 

"Abusive, insinuating, malevolent," observes the 
reader. Precisely so, and precisely the thing required. 
The hammering process is as essential in the evolution 



390 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

of a poet as in the making of a soldier. "We say words 
in the moonlight," said the soldierly Myron Reed, "that 
we do not stand up to in the daytime. When the band 
plays and there is cheering and the girls are waving 
handkerchiefs, it is easy to enlist 'for three years or the 
war' ; but afterwards, south of the Ohio, plugging along 
in the mud — that is different." It was one thing for 
Riley to receive applause, — but hisses were different. 
Nevertheless they were decisive factors. They were 
the test. If he could withstand them he might be 
worthy of renown. The author of "Leonainie" had 
much to say about the "sublime satisfaction and proud 
complacency" of the critic. Yet that despised critic 
was a means of making him serviceable to mankind. 
The critic hammers the self-sufficiency out of young 
writers. 

While gathering poems for another book, he was 
inclined to rewrite "Leonainie" before including it 
in the volume; but, "since the nimbus round it," as 
he said, "is historical rather than poetical," he finally 
permitted the lines to remain as they were originally 
written. 

Many newspapers charged the paternity of "Leo- 
nainie" to the editor of the Dispatch. "They 
do me too much honor," retorted the editor. "The 
furor is in its incipiency," he said editorially 
August twenty-third. "The poem is traveling 
on the wind. The ablest critics of the land have 
leveled their lenses upon it. If we have been the 
victim of a deception, we are willing as anybody to 
know it. We believe in the paternity of the poem and 
can wait with complacency the verdict of the reading 
public. The original manuscript together with the book 
from which the leaves were torn is now in our posses- 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 391 

sion. The book is one of an old edition of Ainsworth's 
Dictionary, considerably time-worn. The poem is writ- 
ten in pale ink of a bluish tinge on the fly leaf taken 
from the back of the book. The chirography is remark- 
ably clear and can be read as easily as print. Of course 
it is somewhat dimmed by time and exposure. It is 
written on both pages of a single leaf. The manuscript 
will be sent East to critics for examination and judg- 
ment. The poem is indeed remarkable, and its acci- 
dental discovery is a valuable contribution to Ameri- 
can literature." 

While Riley was resting at Greenfield things were de- 
veloping over at Anderson. An event there that con- 
cerns the issue of the Poe-Poem venture was the con- 
versation of two men on Sunday night, August 19, 1877. 
They had entered the corner of the Court House yard 
and seated themselves under a Carolina poplar. They 
had been talking very earnestly at the restaurant. 
As Riley said, "they had thawed their grief with 
steaming coffee and their hearts had grown warm over 
their woes." He went on to describe their surround- 
ings and the night. "The people," he said, "were home 
from church with the supreme satisfaction that attends 
tired pilgrims at the close of the sweet day of rest. 
Lovers were cooing quietly in pleasant hiding-places 
and old folks were dreaming of toll-gates and splint- 
bottomed chairs. The alleys were fragrant with tin 
cans and virtuous herbs. The leaves and flowers, birds 
and beasts, and creeping things in the grass and on 
the back porch were performing their functions in the 
usual manner. At the edge of town the broad expanse 
of cornfields stretched away to the purple woods, and 
in the distance the solar system worked respectfully at 
its appointed task." 



392 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

The two men under the Carolina poplar were James 
McClanahan and Stephen Metcalf, one of the proprie- 
tors of the Anderson Herald. "The time has come for 
this bubble to burst," said McClanahan, referring to 
the Poe Poem — nine simple words but they were 
charged with the constituents of gunpowder. They 
were uttered by the man who again and again had 
signed himself, "Yours forever, European Balsam." He 
had been admitted to the "circle of secrecy" around the 
literary torpedo and could no longer keep the secret. 
"The dear boy !" how came he to break the seal of con- 
fidence ? How came he to drop a firebrand on the path 
of "the dearest friend he had on earth" — he who had 
found that friend a luckless disconsolate in overalls 
and bowled away with him to a legendary world — who 
had wandered with him up hill and down dale in search 
of the Golden Fleece — who had drifted away to the 
Wisconsin woods and brought him tidings of the 
"Golden Girl" — how came he in the tense moments of 
a hapless venture to be disobedient to a trust? "No- 
body knows," said an intimate friend, "but him and 
the 'Sphinx' and neither is saying anything." It is an 
unraveled riddle. There was a ratchet loose somewhere 
but certain it is that the Graphic Chum did not disobey 
his trust maliciously. Riley was not embittered by the 
part he played. "We are friends," he said, "and will 
be in the Dim Unknown." 

The hour had struck for the Anderson Herald. For 
weeks it had been chaffing over the success of the 
Democrat. Its subscription list had suffered from the 
popularity of the "Jingling Editor." At last it had a 
journalistic "scoop" with dimensions. The time had 
come for it to "lash its rival with its lighting." Mon- 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 393 

day morning the "secret" was walking up and down 
the streets. There was an envious chatter among com- 
positors in the Herald composing room — 

"Sockety — hockety — wockety wump — 
Pillikum — pollikum — plumpty pump." 

"Your Poe Poem has assumed a new phase here," 
wrote the faithful William M. Croan of the Democrat. 
"The Herald has just got wind of it and swears it will 
expose the entire thing in coming issue. I write you 
as a friend warning you of the danger." 

Groan's warning reached Riley Monday night. At 
first he was dizzy over the threatened revelation. He 
could not realize it. "And this is life, I believe. Oh, 
certainly. Why not?" he muttered to himself in the 
mock-heroic way of Dick Swiveller. As the hours 
wore on to midnight the complications over- 
whelmed him. He and his friends had striven 
strenuously. He thought of the two weeks past as 
a perilous chariot drawn by a double span of 
horses and driven by an orphan. A master hand 
would have driven a winning race. Now the horses' 
legs were outside the traces and they were pulling and 
twisting every which way. Just my luck, thought he ; 
"the cat's away and the mice they play; the frost 
breaks up and the water runs. Edgar Allan Poe" — he 
moaned dolefully — "just thirteen letters — unlucky for 
Poe — unlucky for everything connected with him." 

The opportune moment having arrived, the expose 
was sprung, — but not in the Herald, as the Democrat 
expected. The Herald proprietor could not make 
his threat good. One of his associates — the "rival 
editor" in the war of words that preceded Riley's de- 



394 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

cision to test his theory — in some unaccountable man- 
ner had been admitted to the "ring around the torpedo." 
While he freely hammered the "Jingling Poet," he 
would not carry his cudgeling to the breach of a trust. 
Though "cold and metallic in face," said Riley, "his 
heart was soft and warm as the heart of youth." The 
Herald therefore had to content itself with sending the 
expose to its friendly neighbor, the Kokomo Tribune, 
which, according to its rival, the Dispatch, "jumped 
for the sensation as a bullfrog would leap for a red 
flannel bait." 

The Herald quoted its friendly contemporary with 
ghoulish glee: "Upon our first page," it said editori- 
ally, "we present the Tribune's exposure of the poetical 
fraud 'Leonainie.' We are sorry that Mr. J. W. Riley 
should have proven himself so mendacious, and sorrier 
still that he is the author of the poem. We might have 
forgiven him his want of veracity but it is hard to 
condone 'Leonainie.' " 

The expose was of course a feat for the newspapers. 
It was not "the little stir among the state exchanges," 
which Riley anticipated when he launched the venture. 
The critics began to "erupt volcanically." 

The exchanges had a great deal to say about "a lit- 
erary forgery," and the dead Poe, the "chief victim," 
who was powerless to avenge the wrong done his name 
and honor. As they saw it, the Poe Poem and the 
"verse carpenter" who wrote it, deserved the oppro- 
brium heaped upon them. Saucy weeklies talked volu- 
bly about "a great fraud," "insufferable nonsense," the 
"unscrupulous young man," and "an exceedingly fool- 
ish piece of criminality." A Detroit daily regretted that 
the American people had been deluded into the idea 
that there really does exist in Indiana a place by the 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 395 

name of Kokomo. "The poem," said a New York daily, 
"effectually sets at rest whatever suspicion there may 
have been that the author had the material out of which 
a poet is made." Many journals saw "an impassable 
gulf" between Riley and fame. "A brilliant career had 
been blighted and forever lost to the literary world." 

When abuse had run its course, the Kokomo Dispatch 
summed up the situation as follows: — 

"Our object in the ruse was two-fold, both of which 
have been accomplished: First, to perpetuate a quiet 
pleasant joke, which we would afterward explain; sec- 
ond, to give Mr. Riley's genius as a poet a fair, full 
and impartial test before the ablest critics in the land, 
uninfluenced by local prejudice or sectional bias. The 
only fiction about the transaction was the Poe story. 
The poem possesses a vast deal of merit, and would do 
no violence to the reputation of our more pretentious 
bards of today. Although it has been roughly criticized 
in certain quarters, it has been praised as the work of 
genius in others. No poem ever passed through a more 
relentless gauntlet of criticism. None has ever had a 
more general reproduction by the press. Mr. Riley is 
a young poet of great promise and will we predict yet 
make his mark as one of the sweetest singers of the 
age." 

In the hopeful meantime — although it seemed hope- 
less — what was the fate of the "Verse Carpenter" ? To 
give a fanciful turn to a fanciful incident, as related by 
his comrade Nye, the literary fledgling had leaned from 
his high chair far out to catch a dainty, gilded butter- 
fly, and lost his footing and with a piercing shriek had 
fallen headlong to the gravel walk below; and when he 
was picked up, he was — he was a poet. But he was a 
poet caught in the arms of doom. Instead of drifting 



396 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

away from him like a dream, "Leonainie" had returned, 
the enfant terrible. 

The depth of despair into which the poet was 
plunged by the wave of criticism and reproach and its 
effect on his conduct and literary output are reserved 
for the next chapter. 

Said Riley, years after the exposure, "The tirade 
and outcries are all smiling material now, but then 
they were pathos from away-back." 

"That fly leaf !" he once protested, plucking the nettle 
from his past, "how the woof of my destiny has been 
warped around that. When a schoolboy I wrote my 
name on a fly leaf of an old reader with enough extra 
flourish at the bottom for a lasso, wrote it with dreamy 
speculations of the sensation it would some day create 
beneath a picture of myself in a cocked hat, a plume, 
and a ruffled collar — such as Sir Walter Raleigh wore, 
don't you know. Well, the extra flourish and sensation 
came when the 'Famous Fake' went bounding through 
the land. I came so perilously near losing my pelt then 
that I have been scared from A. to Izzard ever since/* 

After the whirlwind of comments on "Leonainie," 
"posthumous poetry" was the talk of the time. Re- 
porters went prowling round neighborhoods in search 
of clues to mysteries, and when they could not find 
them, they invented them. An unpublished poem by 
Bret Harte was found at Effingham, Illinois, while car- 
penters were tearing down an old schoolhouse. The 
poem, it was said, was written on narrow strips of 
manila wrapping paper, in Harte's well-known femi- 
nine hand. The author had passed that way while 
walking from San Francisco to New York, and de- 
posited the poem in the schoolhouse wall. Another 
posthumous production was found on a headstone in 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 397 

Iowa. Still another in Virginia— "a poetic fragment 
written with chalk on the inside of a barn door." Puck 
entertained its readers with "some more bloomy moon- 
shine poetry by the late author of the 'Raven.' " A 
fisherman with a magnifying-glass described strange 
hieroglyphics on a turtle shell on the banks of the 
Wabash — "unquestionably the last work of the gifted 
but erratic Poe." 

"My friends want to know my feelings," said Riley 
in later years. "I refer them to Mr. Jobling, who 
saw the storm break on the Western Road out of 
London. It was the most dismal period of my life. 
The Democrat said I was rusticating a few days at 
Greenfield. I was abdicating. My tinsel throne was 
crumbling. Friends stood aside — went round the other 
way. I went out on the porch and sighed like a wet 
forestick. Even the pump was disinclined to welcome 
my return. Over at Anderson I saw myself walking 
alone around the Court House square at night through 
the drizzle and rain, peering longingly at the dim light 
in the office where I sometimes slept. Hearts in there 
were as hard and dark and obdurate as the towel in 
the composing room. In those hot silent nights I saw 
the lightning quiver on the black horizon ; I heard hol- 
low murmurings in the wind. Within a week I was 
encysted in pitchy darkness. The lightning was not an 
optical illusion. It was at hand, crooked, dazzling and 
resentful. The rain poured down like Heaven's wrath. 
Every trembling, vivid, flickering instant I breathed 
in horror of impending doom." 

When traveling with his friend Nye, a decade later, 
time had so mollified his heartache that Riley could joke 
about it. He once drew a pen and ink sketch of himself 
chasing his hat in the wind. With one hand he clutched 



398 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

his "reticule" of poems ; with the other he clung to an 
umbrella turned wrong side out by the gale. Both man 
and hat were pursued by the wrath of critics — and the 
rain. "Oh the rain !" he would solemnly repeat to Nye, 

"The rain ! the rain ! the rain ! — 
Pouring with never a pause, 
Over the fields and green byways— * 
How beautiful it was !" 

In the midst of all the noise and distraction of his 
Poe-Poem days, there was one thing if nothing else that 
was perfectly clear and that was that the detractors 
who prophesied oblivion for the "Verse Carpenter," 
knew nothing about it. His future was not in their 
keeping. In those hours of darkness, the winds alone 
were his messengers. Occasionally he was soothed by 
the whisperings of a gentle zephyr, but for the most 
part the visitations came in squalls. "I am the Wind," 
he made the wind say in a poem he was then writing 
for the Kokomo Dispatch, 

"I am the Wind, and I rule mankind, 
And I hold a sovereign reign 
Over the lands as God designed, 
And the waters they contain : 
Lo ! the bound of the wide world round 
Falleth in my domain." 

There came the last week of August a ray of com- 
fort from an accomplished young woman of Anderson, 
Miss Jessie Fremont Myers — afterward Mrs. William 
M. Croan — a prediction that, in the light of subsequent 
events, may be set over against all the mouthings 
of his detractors. "I am indeed sorry," she wrote, 
"that your plan, contrived without a single dishonor- 
able thought or motive, has received such an unmanly 



THE LITERARY TORPEDO 399 

blow just as it is smiling into perfection. But I can- 
not agree with the Tribune that it will result in any 
serious damage to you for I still believe that the true 
votaries of genius will still yield you homage and that 
the laurel wreath fame was twining for your brow, will 
adorn it as if 'Leonainie' had never been written." 

At Anderson also there was a whisper of hope from 
the Artist Comrade — and a bit of wisdom from a 
banker, John W. Pence. "There, Little Man/' said the 
banker, "don't cry; the future is before you; go to 
work." "The day is coming," said the artist to a 
friend, "when we will be proud we were friends of 
Riley. His poems have the true ring — he is bound to 
come to the front." Mrs. Jordan of the Richmond In- 
dependent wrote some hopeful words about the poetic 
waif born in the corner of an obscure paper, that was 
being so mysteriously wafted to periodicals beyond the 
sea. "Count me an ardent admirer of the lamented 
Poe," she said. "Let us do what we can to honor the 
genius of the great departed." 

"After sorrowing and parboiling for a fortnight," 
said Riley, "I resolved to make a clean breast of the 
whole thing." Accordingly the following: 

Greenfield, Indiana, August 29, 1877. 
Editor of Indianapolis Journal, 

Dear Sir: ■. . 

Will you do me the especial favor of publishing the 
enclosed in your issue of to-morrow? Very truly, 

J. W. Riley. 

The enclosure was his "Card to the Public." The 
Journal, however, like all other papers, after the ex- 
pose, was not certain of the card's authenticity. Riley's 
own handwriting was questioned. On the morrow they 
published the request as: 



400 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

THE ALLEGED POE-POEM CARD FROM MR. J. W. RILEY. 
To the Public- 
Having been publicly accused of the authorship of 
the poem, "Leonainie," and again of the far more griev- 
ous error of an attempt to falsely claim it, I deem it 
proper to acknowledge the justice of the first accusa- 
tion. Yes, as much as I regret to say it, I am the 
author ; but in justice to the paper that originally pro- 
duced it, and to myself as well, I desire to say a few 
words more. 

The plan of the deception was originally suggested to 
me by a controversy with friends, in which I was fool- 
ish enough to assert that "no matter the little worth of 
a poem, if a great author's name was attached, it would 
be certain of success and popularity." And to establish 
the truth of this proposition I was unfortunate enough 
to select a ruse, that, although establishing my theory, 
has been the means of placing me in a false light, as 
well as those of my friends who were good enough to 
assist me in the scheme ; for when we found our literary 
bombshell bounding throughout the length and breadth 
of the Union we were so bewildered and involved we 
knew not how to act. Our only intercourse had been 
by post, and we could not advise together fairly in that 
way ; in consequence, a fibrous growth of circumstances 
had chained us in a manner, and a fear of unjust cen- 
sure combined to hold us silent for so long. To find 
at last a jocular explosion of the fraud, we thought- 
lessly employed a means both ill-advised for ourselves 
and others. And now, trusting the public will only con- 
demn me for the folly, and hold me blameless of all 
dishonorable motives wherein I have feigned ignorance 
of the real authorship of the poem, and so forth, and 
so forth, 

I am yours truly, 

J. W. RlLEY. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

WEATHERING THE STORM 

THERE is a classic allusion to Arion which typi* 
lies Riley's fate the first fortnight of September, 
1877. Most provident in peril, says Shake- 
speare in praise of his hero, 

"He bound himself 
(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice) 
To a strong mast that liv'd upon the sea; 
Where like Arion on the dolphin's back, 
He held acquaintance with the waves, 
So long as I could see." 

The Poe-Poem ruse had failed and the expose had 
plunged Riley into a sea of despair. He was literally 
holding acquaintance with waves and winds. He had 
been the victim of one of those vulgar accidents of life, 
according to Lord Beaconsfield, that should be borne 
without a murmur. He did not bear it without a mur- 
mur, but he did bear it. He did not sink beneath the 
weight of woe. 

It was all laughing material years after when the 
experience was "dramatized" in a cartoon for Nye and 
Riley's Railway Guide — the Hoosier Poet riding on 
the dolphin's back, with a golden wreath on his brow, 
a lyre in his arms and a tunic flowing in the wind from 
his shoulders — all merry-making then, but at the time 
the ordeal, in Riley's words, "was a fortnight of woe for 
the infernal gods." All that remained of his fatal ven- 
ture seemed a barren waste surrounded by desolation. 
401 



402 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

The "fortnight of woe" explains the allusion to Riley 
as the "Arion of Grief." His fate did indeed rhyme 
with the narrative in the Age of Fable. Like Arion he 
was a musician and a great favorite. He longed for 
recognition in the East. Friends besought him to be 
content : 

"Stay where you are." 

"Stay on the Democrat. 99 

"Paint signs." 

His answer tallied substantially with that in the 
fable. He longed to make his gift a source of pleasure 
to others, and the conviction had been borne in upon 
him that he could do it with song. 

That period of gloom like many other seasons of 
darkness, was brimming with possibilities — proof once 
more that "man's extremity is God's opportunity." 
Out of it came a lyric — "We Are Not Always Glad 
When We Smile" — that in beauty of pathos has few 
rivals in the English tongue — another instance that 
our laughter 

"With some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
thought." 

How could Riley be so gay while his heart was in 
mourning? How could he smile and even laugh when 
he felt that, for him, the end of all earthly happiness 
had come? Hear him — 

"We are not always glad when we smile, — 
For the heart in a tempest of pain, 
May live in the guise 
Of a smile in the eyes 
As a rainbow may live in the rain : 
And the stormiest night of our woe 



WEATHERING THE STORM 403 

May hang out a radiant star 

Whose light in the sky 

Of despair is a lie 
As black as the thunderclouds are. 

"We are not always glad when we smile : 
Though we wear a fair face and are gay, 

And the world we deceive 

May not ever believe 
We could laugh in a happier way. 
Yet, down in the deeps of the soul, 
Ofttimes with our faces aglow, 

There's an ache and a moan 

That we know of alone, 
And as only the hopeless may know." 

Such is a glimpse of his woe in verse. He also writes 
of it in the following letter to a woman he dearly 
loved, the Lady of Tears he sometimes called her when 
he thought of the sorrow in her life, Miss Eudora Kate 
Myers of Anderson — afterward Mrs. William J. 
Kinsley — » 

Greenfield, Indiana, September 15, 1877. 
Dear Woman: 

Your letter of yesterday does me a world of good, for 
although it hurt in many ways, it showed me still the 
great strength of your love, and with so great a treas- 
ure in my keeping must I not be strong and brave to 
meet all the ills with true manliness, and not with the 
coward heart I have shown for so long. You find fault 
with me for not telling you my trouble, and saying I 
am not satisfied with your love. You do me wrong — 
indeed you do ! My love for you is so great that I have 
tried to hold from you only that which would give 
you extra pain to know and God knows I give you 
misery enough. Look up here in my face and read the 
last week's misery I have passed and you will not offer 
me a chiding word. I have walked down — down in 
hell so far that your dear voice had almost failed to 
reach me, but thank God I can hear you, though I 



404 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

may not touch your hand till I have washed my own 
in tears of repentance. My steps are turning gladly 
toward the light, and it seems to me sometimes I al- 
most see God's face. I have been sick — sick of the 
soul, for had so fierce a malady attacked the body, I 
would have died with all hell hugged in my arms. I 
can speak of this now because I can tell you I am 
saved, and my noble woman will be filled with joy to 
know that God bends down and listens to her prayers. 
In fancy now my arms cling round you as the pilgrim 
to the cross, and through a storm of tears the sunshine 
of your smiles breaks on me, as I say, 

"The burden has fallen from me — 
It is buried in the sea, 
And only the sorrow of others 
Throws its shadow over me." 

I will not now talk longer of myself — there is no end 
of that, and I shall not be selfish any more but hum- 
ble — very, very humble. You must never say again 
you are not worthy of my love. You could not hurt 
me deeper* My worth compared with yours, I tell you 
truly, for I know, "Is as moonlight unto sunlight and as 
water unto wine." I'm growing better though and 
humbly pray that God may brighten up the poor dim 
remnant of my worth that it at last may shine a jewel 
of one lustre with your own. 

How inexpressibly sorrowful were those autumn 
weeks of 1877, when alone Riley walked among the 
great elms on the banks of Brandywine, when 

"The long black shadows of the trees 
Fell o'er him like their destinies." 

The leaves "dropped on him their tears of dew." At 
times he seemed to stand on a beach with its waste of 
sands before him. "I could hear the roar of breakers," 
he said; "low clouds brushed by me — just solitude, 
wreck and ruin — nothing more." 



WEATHERING THE STORM 405 

It does seem that his fate was to be "fanged with 
frost and tongued with flame." His station was not 
to be the tripod of the Democrat, nor the grind of any- 
other journalistic field. Like his King of Slumberland, 
his dais was to be woven of rays of starlight and 
jeweled with gems of dew, and sometimes he was to 
occupy a throne wrought of blackest midnight. He was 
destined to hold communion with those mighty phan- 
toms, Our Ladies of Sorrow. In some way unknown 
to the average mortal the poet was to be kept in touch 
with the deep silence that reigns in their kingdoms. 
One shudders at the sound of their mysterious words : — 
"Suffer not woman and her tenderness to sit near him 
in his darkness. Banish the frailties of hope ; wither 
the relenting of love ; scorch the fountain of tears. So 
shall he be accomplished in the furnace ; so shall he see 
the things that ought not to be seen, sights that are 
abominable, and secrets that are unutterable. So shall 
he read the elder truths, fearful truths. So shall he 
rise again before he dies. And so shall our commis- 
sion be accomplished which from God we had, — to 
plague his heart until we had unfolded the capacities 
of his spirit," 

"Every man," said Riley, "has his dragon as well as 
his Daemon; in this, sinner and saint are alike. The 
shining figure of the Dsemon precedes him, the dragon 
dogs his footsteps. I have my dragon and thereby is 
established my relation to mankind. Doctor Johnson 
had his and I take it that is one reason for the abiding 
interest of the race in what he said and did." In that 
fortnight immediately following the expose, the poet 
was not only suffering from the torture of critics and 
the shattered hope of literary recognition. His heart 



406 JAMES WHITCOMB KILEY 

was also breaking over a lapse from sobriety. His 
dragon seized and shook him as a mastiff. As he ex- 
pressed it, he was "fighting another battle with the blue 
flame" The channels of his thought had been obscured 
and his progress imperiled by his "besetting sin." 
"Friends offered sympathy," he said ; "how could they 
sympathize when their souls had not been bruised with 
adversity? They had not been steeped to the lips in 
misery; they had not seen their fondest hopes perish; 
they had not bared their faces on the earth at night; 
they had not suffered the pangs of humiliation. What 
could they know — \ 

'Of the frenzy and fire of the brain, 
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden'? 

There are hours in the battle with this disease when a 
man can breathe no prayer, nor utter a cry, hours 
when he 

'Bends and sinks like a column of sand 
In the whirlwind of his great despair.' " 

Carlyle points out that David, the Hebrew King, was 
a man of blackest crimes, "no want of sins, yet he was 
the man according to God's own heart." He had 
learned the significance of sackcloth and ashes. "Of all 
acts," says the author, "is not, for a man, repentance 
the most divine? What are faults," he asks, "what are 
the outward details of a life ; if the inner secret of it, 
the remorse, temptations, true, often-baffled, never- 
ended struggle of it, be forgotten ?" What is a man's 
life if he is not touched with a feeling of our infirmi- 
ties? 

Repentance is the word that looms large on the 
poet's horizon after the Poe-Poem episode. 




M 






The Poet at the Age of Twenty-eight 




Old County Court House 
First home of the Township Library 



WEATHERING THE STORM 407 

"Pitilessly, year by year 
From the farthest past to here, 
Fate had fallen like a blight 
On the blossoms of delight," 

and he realized as never before that he was chiefly re- 
sponsible for that fate. Now God was bending down 
and listening to his prayers — and the prayer of his 
Lady of Tears. Thus it seemed he "could almost see 
God's face." Had he left no other record of himself 
than this, he would deserve the homage of fallen hu- 
manity everywhere. In that "storm of tears" he mas- 
tered himself and made "his torture tributary to his 
will." In that eventful time there began "the faithful 
struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is 
good and best" — a struggle often baffled but never 
abandoned. Face to face with the picture of his woe 
he clung to his purpose. He resolved "not to fade away 
in the darkness of alcoholic night" — and he kept his 
word. "The Lord is my shepherd," he prayed ; "surely 
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
life" — and they did. The day he was not tempted 
to drink, which he so fervently anticipated, never 
came ; but the day did come when he could resist the 
temptation. 

Men and women have never withheld their love from 
the man who rises superior to misfortune. If while ris- 
ing he fall, they mantle the fall with their compassion. 
If he have a besetting sin, their interest in him never 
flags so long as he strives manfully to detach himself 
from it. "Who," asks the old monk Thomas a Kempis, 
"hath a harder battle to fight than he who striveth for 
self-mastery?" After all, the great victory is to whip 
the offending Adam out of life, and this Riley pro- 
ceeded to do, beginning with a strong hand the fall of 



408 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

1877. Henceforth as hitherto, the people were with 
him. They gave him freely of their sympathy and 
love. 

It is refreshing to note a cause of the people's sym- 
pathy. In those notable years of the seventies, a re- 
markable man, Robert Collyer, came from his Chicago 
pulpit to Indiana towns with his lecture on "Clear 
Grit." Few speakers surpassed him in the power to 
mould public sentiment. Riley dearly loved him be- 
cause of his large-hearted incentives. "Collyer had 
been through the crucible," said Riley. "He knew what 
it meant to grapple a great temptation by the throat." 

"A man may have all sorts of shining qualities," said 
Collyer in the lecture; "he may be as handsome as 
Apollo, as plausible as Mercury, and as full of fight as 
Mars, and yet be a bit of mere shining paste- — no dia- 
mond at all. On the other hand, a man's faults and 
failings may be an everlasting regret to those who love 
him best, as they are in a man like Robert Burns. But 
because there's Clear Grit in him, because there's a bit 
of manhood running through his life as grand and good 
as ever struggled through this world of ours toward a 
better ; a heart that could gather everything that lives 
within the circle of its mighty sympathy, from a mouse 
shivering in a furrow, to a saint singing in Heaven; 
because there's a heart like that in him, we cling to his 
knees, we will not let him go ; sin-smitten, but mighty, 
manful man, as he is, we gather him into our heart, 
everyone of us, and love him with an everlasting love." 

It was the Burns quality in Riley's songs and the 
discovery of Clear Grit in his character back there in 
the latter seventies that endeared him to the people of 
Indiana. They had found a man who was touched with 
a feeling for their infirmities. Thus finding him they 



WEATHERING THE STORM 409 

were not unmindful of his sorrows. Nor did they dis- 
prize his songs because he was the victim of the blue 
flame-— 

"For his tempted and wandering feet, 
Were the songs of David less pure and sweet?" 

There was a dragon between the poet and the Golden 
Fleece but that did not deter him. He would have the 
Fleece at all hazards and it was this determination that 
deepened the people's love. They would not "throw 
away a pineapple because it had a rough coat." Here 
and there were friends who had witnessed Riley's 
rapture after his release from the Beast, as he 
sometimes called the blue flame. The depth of grati- 
tude spiritualized and transfigured in his face was 
unforgetable. It was evident to them that he had not 
yielded to the tempter without inwardly protesting 
against him. "Release from the clutches of the Beast," 
Riley once said, "is as sweet to me as the vision of peace 
to a nation after war. I dreamed once I was a country 
besieged by a foreign foe. I never could tell when or 
where the foe would strike, nor could I ever compass 
his strength. Sometimes I was able to repel him at 
the first blow; at other times he would march inland 
and leave desolation and grief in his path before I 
was able to defeat him and drive him from my king- 
dom. Not a silly dream either," he added. "Man en- 
larged, with his passions, possibilities and perils, is 
the nation; and the nation diminished is the man." 

The struggles of the poet with adverse fate revealed 
him a man of uncommon order. They manifested the 
heroic — endurance of agonies. He had capacities for 
infinite pain, and, growing out of these, fertility of re- 
sources. His "sufferings being of an immortal nature," 



410 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

his knowledge of the invisible world — the world so near 
us we can not comprehend it — his knowledge of that 
world reached far beyond the ken of average thought, 
and that meant jewels of song that otherwise had not 
enhanced the joy of mankind. 

The Poe Poem with its numerous complications was 
succeeded by what Riley called an "era of prosperity," 
a period of two years wherein, from the standpoint of 
pure genius, he did his greatest work. They were the 
second and third years of his "Prolific Decade." In- 
cluding good, bad and indifferent, one thousand poems 
are credited to his pen. Two hundred of these, to- 
gether with many sketches in prose, were written the 
two years following September, 1877. That two-year 
period of untrammelled endeavor was a heavenly con- 
trast to the ten years of rough traveling that preceded 
it. He was blessed with the smile of thirty moons, 
"a total abstinence turnpike," he phrased it, "which 
glancing back over he found as true as the sights 
of a level." 

Riley never credited artificial stimulants with 
a single poem or story although there were occa- 
sional rumors to the contrary. "There is a 
theory abroad," said he, "that writers succeed 
by wooing the means of weakness and debility; as 
Shakespeare has it, by applying hot and rebellious 
liquors in their blood. They succeed, not by such a 
course, but in spite of it. From ancient times, men 
have sacrificed mind and money at the shrine of Bac- 
chus; in the phrase of the street, become vassals of 
King Booze ; millions have gone down to defeat ; others, 
some of them great and mighty men, have fought and 
won their way to fame. They did not win because of 
drink but in spite of it. Rum does, strangely enough, 



WEATHERING THE STORM 411 

lubricate the grooves of life, and under its gloze the 
world of care becomes a harmless jest, but nothing 
worth saving was ever written then. A maudlin effort 
is always a weak effort. I can imagine a poet under the 
pretense of intoxication, reeling to the door of a friend 
at midnight. After being admitted and pitied, I hear 
him say, 'Give me some paper — I want to write a poem/ 
The next morning the friend relates the incident to his 
neighbors and says the fellow wrote 'Bells Jangled/ He 
had not done so. The pretender had thought on the 
poem for two weeks and had every line of it at his 
command when he entered his friend's house. Some 
authors think it an honor to have the fame of writing 
under the influence of wine. I want no such reputation. 
A man must be in his right mind if he writes poetry 
worth reading. Once in Indianapolis there lived a 
poet who was always posing as one who wrote poetry 
on the spur of the moment. It was not true. Previous- 
ly he had worked for days on a poem which his idolaters 
supposed he wrote at a desk in ten minutes while they 
Jooked on in open-eyed wonder." 

"When you reckon up nature," Myron Reed once 
said to Riley, "it is not fair to take one side 
only, and add together June mornings, and bird 
songs, and rainbows, and the gladness of the grass 
and grain. There is another very serious set of 
items that must come in somewhere. The air of the 
June morning that plumes the feathers of the robin may 
be twisted before night into a cyclone. We are in a 
world where the devil, mountain lions and silver-tipped 
bears are loose. Our enemies are not in a cage. Pleas- 
ant it is to see the sun, pleasant to lean out of your 
window on moonlight nights to hear the bugle and lis- 
ten to The Campbells Are Coming'; but to be a Camp- 



412 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

bell in a pair of wet horse-hide boots wrinkled at the 
ankles — that is different. It is a slow process," con- 
cluded Reed, smiling at Riley's dream of spotless de- 
portment, "a slow process training a river, a tiger and 
a man. There is the inclination to return to the old 
way." Mark Twain had said, "Habit is habit and not 
to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed 
down stairs a step at a time." 

It was a slow process — the formation of character. 
Resolutions were necessary to that end, and back there 
in the fall of 1877 Riley made some. He got a cue 
from the saying of a wise old Indianapolis lawyer, 
Calvin Fletcher, who had also been a successful farmer, 
banker and railroad promoter. "If I have business re- 
lations with a man," said the lawyer, "and he gets 
angry at me or does not act right, it is my fault My 
business is to see that everybody with whom I deal shall 
do right. I charge myself with the responsibility." 
Riley promptly saw the wisdom of the law- 
yer's course. If I am not upright in thought and 
conduct, he reasoned, it is my fault. If I do not 
have friends and health it is my fault. If others do not 
love me it is my fault. If the critics do not praise my 
poems, if I do not reach the goal, it is my fault. Thus 
he made a map of the country through which he was 
to travel, put up guide-posts, all pointing to a rosy 
triumph. And it was good for him to do so, although 
he did not always travel in the forward direction. 
From his youth he had had a sharp eye for outward 
things, but he had been a hazy student of himself. 
Now, however, self-study became an absorbing subject, 
the unlocking of hidden faculties, the searching anal- 
ysis of his powers and their relation to the place he 
was to occupy in the world. Knowledge of all men 



WEATHERING THE STORM 413 

meant, first, self-knowledge ; the control of others, self- 
control, and so forth. 

"Are there not some exceptions to this doctrine of 
personal responsibility?" asked a reporter some years 
after Riley had made his resolution. "Exceptions? 
Lord, no!" was the prompt reply. "It will work all 
the way up the scale. If I am not President of the 
United States, it is my fault." There were some ex- 
ceptions but the conquering spirit of YOUTH in the poet 
would not tolerate them. 

Perhaps the most valuable lesson that Riley learned 
from the Poe-Poem experience was the wise con- 
struction he put on the use of adversity. "If some 
misfortune can befall him — all will be well." This 
seems a heartless remark and some can not forgive 
Emerson for making it. Riley saw wisdom in it. 
Through the mist of tears he perceived that the ugly 
and venomous toad we call adversity does truly wear 
a precious jewel in its head. There was such a thing 
as thriving on misfortune. "By going wrong things 
had come right." A friend wrote to ask if he was dis- 
couraged over the "Leonainie Downfall." 

"Discouraged? God bless you, no," was the homely 
reply. "It has fattened me like a Thanksgiving 
turkey." 

Now that he has surmounted what for a while seemed 
an insurmountable obstacle, it may be said in the true 
sense of the word that Riley was a poet. He had a 
new conception of his mission. Since his vision, his 
attitude had been that of a listener. "In hours of in- 
spiration," tie said, "I was a lover listening to an utter- 
ance that flowed in syllables like dewdrops from the 
lips of flowers." The listening attitude was to con- 
tinue, but he was not only to listen, he was to 



414 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

work. It was one thing to be favored with the sylla- 
bles, another and equally important thing to seize 
them and record them. They had to be caressed 
and polished and occasionally hammered that the 
reader might have, in a measure, the sense of beauty 
that ravished the poet's heart when he first heard 
them. After the syllables had been recorded he had to 
set the poem up, and then "walk around it," he said, 
"as Benjamin Harrison walked around a law case." 
Of a poem that had required a day and a night's effort 
he remarked, "you can track me round it a hundred 
times." Poems were his children — good — bad — in- 
different. To curb, train and direct them demanded 
the patience of an educator. When in a jocular mood 
Riley was wont to call an unfinished poem a "Caira- 
wan." At such times he would play the Dwarf in 
Christmas Stories to perfection: "Ladies and Gentle- 
men," he would say when taking leave of friends to 
work on a poem, "the Little Man will now walk three 
times around the Cairawan and retire behind the cur- 
tain." Thus he sometimes uttered the words on enter- 
ing his room at night. The next morning there would 
be a new poem on his table. 

And here also the reader comes to the exit of the 
Little Man in this volume. Having been before the 
footlights for a season — not from any wish of his own 
but in response to the call of his friends — he looks 
back a moment on the rare pictures of his boyhood and 
forward for a glimpse of his future and then makes his 
bow and retires behind the curtain. 

It is the first year of his "Prolific Decade" and the 
last day of the year — 1877. The Little Man is twenty- 
eight years old. As his favorite Ik Marvel wrote, 
"Clouds were weaving the summer into the season of 



WEATHERING THE STORM 415 

autumn; and youth was rising from dashed hopes 
into the stature of a man." There being little doubt 
among his friends, less in himself, and none in the 
mind of the Calm Angel, that he is a poet, he settles 
down to his work in Greenfield. The "wanderlust" 
calls to him in vain. The past with its cloud and sun- 
shine is like a story. In a way, it seems years back to 
his vision although it is less than twenty moons. It 
was a long way back to the old County Court House 
with its Township Library, and the Shoe-Shop where 
he received his first impulse to a literary life — farther 
yet back to the little willow brook of rhymes that war- 
bled through his native town, a score and more years 
back to the day in childhood when he and his Uncle 
Mart ascended the stream and lifted the curtains on its 
winding scenery — a long, tortuous way it was back to 
these mile-stones. 

At last he has fairly set sail on a literary sea, and 
for him that sea has the charms that envelop the mari- 
ner on his first voyage to foreign lands. Sky and 
atmosphere are brimmed and overflowing. All things 
are elate with buoyancy. There is the breath of morn- 
ing in the sea air. Before him in the hazy kingdoms 
of the unknown are the Fortunate Isles and somewhere 
beyond them — 

"The shores of an eternity 
In the calms of Paradise." 



! 



INDEX 



INDEX 

Abbott, Emma, 317. 

Adelphian Band, 166. 

Adjustable Lunatic, motif of, 255. 

Alcott, Louisa May, 81. 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 314. 

Alleghany Mountains, 1, 6. 

Along the Banks of Brandywine, 63. 

Amendment, The, Riley's school paper, 68, 367. 

American Patriot, The, 16. 

Anderson Democrat, 333, 342, excerpt from, 351-2. 

Anderson Mystery, The, 399. 

Arabian Nights, 27, 73. 

Argonauts of '49, 86. 

At Last, 225. 

Autumn Leaf, An, 228. 

Anecdotes : Benson Out-Bensoned, 356-58 ; Bill at Greenfield Hotel, 
216; cake of soap, 26; creditors, 79; Discouraging Model, 
124; drowning painter, 149; Dying Soldier, 56-57; end of 
Riley's career as musician, 165; end of Riley's career as 
violinist, 178; first boots, 25; first suit of clothes, 182; 
grandfather's book, 10; leaving the farm, 69-70; 
Leonainie, 368-400; Lily, 49; McCrillus, Dr., engages Riley, 
108; Martin Riley runs away, 19; Out to Old Aunt Mary's, 
motif, 38 ; Peg Woffington, 260-61 ; picnic of the Adelphians, 
166-68; progress of South Bend, 143; Riley, Andrew, sells 
corn, 7; Riley and Anna Mayflower, 161-63; Riley and the 
irate farmer, 132-34 ; Riley as Bible seller, 74 ; Riley as blind 
painter, 135-36; Riley as editor of Greenfield Criterion, 66; 
Riley as painter of signs and houses, 74-78; Riley as secre- 
tary of the Sunday-school, 90; Riley at the bar, 181-88; 
Riley's choice of profession, 212'; Riley's first valentine, 223 ; 
Riley in Magic Oil Laboratory, 211; Riley's intuition, 244- 
45; Riley, McClanahan and Hell, 152; reading Robinson 
Crusoe in school, 50-60; Reciting Casabianca, 55; Riley 
sends letters and poems to Longfellow, 234-36, 31S; Riley 
skating, 61; Riley takes his first poem to the Greenfield 
Commercial, 221-22; Riley's trip with his father to Indian- 
apolis, 58-59; side-show at Cadiz, 117; Thanksgiving Day at 
Henehley's, 359-64. 

Bailey, Montgomery, 225. 
Ballad, A, 224. 
Barnett, War, 169. 
Bartholomew County, 15. 
Battle of LovelVs Pond, 221. 
Bedford, Pa., 6. 

419 



420 INDEX 

Beecher, Henry Ward, 363. 

Benson, Luther, 266, 356. 

Benson Out-Bensoned, 152. 

Billings, Josh, 172. 

Bonny Brown Quail, 63. 

Brandy wine Creek, 14, 40, 62. 

Brightwood, 335. 

British Books, influence on Riley, 93-5. 

Brook Song, 24. 

Bull, Ole, Norwegian violinist, 170-75. 

Burlington Hawkeye, 349. 

Cabin Creek, 12, 14. 

Capt. Kidd, 60. 

Chatterton, Thomas, 367. 

Child, Lydia Maria, 172. 

Child World, The, 31, 159. 

Choate, Joseph H., 125. 

Cincinnati, 4. 

Clay, Henry, 8. 

Clayton, L. H., 78. 

Collyer, Robert, 172, 245, 408. 

Cooley, George, 240. 

Country Pathway, A, 233, 366. 

Craqueodoom, 339. 

Croan, William M., 355, 361, 393. 

Crooked Jim, 63. 

Curtis, George W., 171. 

Banbury News, 225, 227, 316, 349. 

Dave Field, 153. 

Delaware County, 10. 

Denison Hotel, 58. 

Destinu A 229 

Dickens, Charles, 4, 5, 11, 64, 98, 99, 101, 204-206. 

Duck Creek Jabberwock, 339. 

Earlhamite, The, 334. 
Edyrn, 217-218. 
Empty Song, An, 298-299. 
Ethell, J. W., 145, 384. 

Fame : 130 ; quoted, 236, 307, 320. 

Family Friend, 16. 

Farmer Whipple — Bachelor, 114-226. 

Fitch, John, 284. 

Flames and Ashes, 233. 

Flaxman, John, 276. 

Fletcher, Calvin, 412. 

Fragment, quoted, 68. 

Frog, The, 39. 

Funny Little Fellow, 324. 

Fuseli, Henry, 254. 



INDEX 42l 

George, Henry, 314. 

George Mullen's Confession, 339. 

Gill, W. F., 383. 

Golden Girl: letter to Riley about OH Sweetheart of Mine 267- 

273, 279, 283-311, 370. 
Gooding, Judge David S., 41. 
Graphic Company, 132-157. 
Graphics, 144, 225. 
Great Pedee, 17. 

Greenfield, 14, 15, 17, 19, 30, 41, 62, 82. 

Greenfield Commercial : Riley as a musician, 177 ; 220, 221, 316. 
Greenfield Democrat, 77, 215, 322. 
Greenfield News, 114, 226, 227. 
Greenfield Reveille, 16. 
Greenfield Spectator, 16. 
Guymon House, 79. 

Hancock County, 82. 

Happy Bells, 368. 

Harris, Lee O., 52, 62-66, 238, 275, 314, 316, 328. 

Harte, Bret, 64, 88. 143, 190. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 314. 

Hay, John : 5, 50, 160, 225 ; letter to Riley, 282. 

Hearth and Home, 229. 

Hedley, James, 255. 

Henderson, John O., 371-72. 

Her Beautiful Hands, quoted, 297. 

His Mother, quoted, 190. 

Holland, J. G., 172. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 314. 

Hough, Judge William R., 39. 

Howell s, William Dean, 3, 375. 

Hunt, Emily, 14. 

If I Knew What Poets Know, 267. 

Indiana, 4, 6, 7, 8. 

Indianapolis Herald, 48, 234, 277. 

Indianapolis Journal, 274. 

Indianapolis Mirror, 223. 

Indianapolis Sentinel, 172, 275. 

Ingersoll, Robert G., 329. 

In the Dark, 296. 

Ireland, William, 367. 

Iron Horse, The, 123. 

Irving, Washington : as a lawyer, 183 ; influence on Riley, 90. 

Jay Whit, 23, 25, 218. 

Jefferson, Joseph, 61. 

Joe BiggsWs Proposal, quoted, 165. 

Johnny Appleseed, 11, 77. 

Johnny, a short story by Riley, 224. 

Jordan, Mrs. D. M., 378. 



422 INDEX 

Keefer, Almon, 34, 86. 
Kingry, George, 61. 
Kinnard, William, 361. 
Kinney, Coates, 363. 
Kokomo Dispatch, 371-72. 
Eokomo Republican, 227. 
Krout, Mary H., 268. 

Lacy, John W., 66. 

Lafayette, Gen., 8. 

Lake Erie, 4. 

Last Waltz, quoted, 168. 

Lavater, 254. 

Leloine, 228. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 12, 30, 80, SI, 106. 

Lines in a Letter Enclosing a Picture, quoted, 296. 

Little Brandywine, 63. 

Little Nell, 72, 98, 199. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadswortb : 10, 33, 65; influence on Riley, 103- 

104, 174, 221, 269, 274, 2S2, 310, 314, 315, 316; letter to 

Riley, 321, 322, 324, 327-28, 363. 
Lost Kiss, The, 286. 
Lowell, James Russell, 27, 181, 252. 

McOanahan, James, 108, 145, 288, 308. 

McClure Township Library, 91-94. 

McCrillus, Dr. S. B., 105-31. 

McDowell, Babe, 229. 

McGuffey, William H., 102-03. 

McManus, S. B., 149. 

Mack, F. H., 145. 

Man of Many Parts, 339. 

Man's Devotion, 223. 

Marvel, Ik, 229, 233, 246, 414. 

Masonic Hall of Greenfield, 62. 

Mass Convention, 15. 

Master Humphrey's Clock, 5. 

Maud Muller, burlesque, 235. 

Metcalf, Stephen, 392. 

Metropolitan Theatre, 260. 

Mill, John Stuart, 314. 

Millikan, Rhoda Houghton, 90-91, 218, 239. 

Mississinewa River, 9-11, 121-22, 234. 

Mitchell, Donald G., 316. 

Mitchell, S. Weir, 255. 

Mockery, 223. 

Moonlight in the Forest, 63. 

Moreland, George, influence upon Riley, 154-55. 

Morton, Oliver P., 30. 

Mountains of the Moon, 3. 

Myers, Eudora Kate, 403. 



INDEX 423 



Myers, Jessie F., 398. 

Myers, Capt. W. R., 360. 

My Jolly Friend's Secret, 225. 

National Hotel, 16. 

National Road, 31, 50, 86, 160. 

Neghborly Poems, 354. 

Neill, Mrs. Frances, 35. 

Newcastle, 82. 

Newcastle Mercury, 333. 

New Garden, 9. 

Now We Can Sleep, Mother, 337. 

Nursery Rhymes for Children, 128. 

Nye, Bill, 53, 188, 233. 

Old Fashioned Roses, 326. 

Old Siveetheart of Mine, 267. 

Old Swimmin' Hole, 77, 80. 

Old Wish, motif, 161. 

Orlie Wild, 369. 

Out to Old Aunt Mary's, 38. 

Overland Route, The, 87. 

Over the Hills to the Poor Farm, 355. 

Pamona, 11. 

Parker, B. S., 265, 323. 

Pence, John W., 399. 

Peter Bell, 61. 

Philiper Flash, 218-19. 

Phillips, Charles, 387. 

Phillips, Wendell, 172. 

Pierson, William M., 66. 

Pioneer Days : activities, 5 ; characteristics of people, 1-6 ; food, 7 ; 

land conditions, 2-3 ; philosophy of the pioneer, 4. 
Plain Sermons, 225. 
Plank Road, 19. 
PoeVs Realm, 217. 
PoeVs Wooing, 223, 225. 
Post-Gazette, 221. 

Queen City, 8. 
Queen Victoria, 8. 

Randolph County, 6, 7, 9, 10. 

Railway Guide, 401. 

Reed, Myron, 61, 70, 95, 218, 248, 269, 271, 278, 274, 317, 366, 390, 

411. 
Rhymes of Childhood, 354. 
Richards, Samuel, 360, 384. 
Richmond Independent, 334. 
Ridgeville, 9. 
Riley: family, 6-9. Mother, Elizabeth Marine, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 

character, 13; marriage, 14, 16, 17, 21; death, 71; influence 



424 INDEX 

on Riley, 72-73. Father, Reuben Riley, 6; description, 12, 
13, 15, 17, 20 ; in politics, 30 ; at war, 79, 105-07 ; ambition 
for J. W., 181-82. Grandfather, Andrew Riley, 7. Grand- 
mother, Margaret Sleek Riley, 6, 10. Brothers and sisters: 
Elva May Riley, 32; Humboldt Alexander Riley, 32; John 
Andrew Riley, 31; Martha Celestia Riley, 31; Mary Eliza- 
beth Riley, 32. Uncle Martin Riley, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28 ; in- 
fluence on Riley's imagination, 34, 86, 87. Marine ancestry : 
occupation, 9 ; grandfather, John Marine, 8, 9 ; grandmother, 
Fanny Jones Marine, 9, 11, 13. James Whitcomb Riley : 
birth, 21; association with Dr. McCrillus, 108; association 
with Home Sewing Machine Co., 148; association with Wiz- 
ard Oil Co., 193-215 ; description of Riley by J. B. Townsend, 
212-14; education, 33-38, 39, 42, 50-58, 60-67; early reading, 
90 ; 103 ; enters law, 188 ; enters newspaper business, 227 ; on 
friendship, 250; growth in imagination, 28; in poetic spirit, 
203-10; influence of Forty-Niners on Riley, 87-89; love of 
nature, 40-47, 50, 51 ; love of music, 159, 170; as lawyer, 181- 
192; as musician, 158-180; philosophy in early life, 84-87; 
publishes first poem, 58; on private theatricals, 225; Riley, 
McClanahan Advertising Co., 132 ; Riley's vision, 272. 

Ripest Peach is on the Highest Tree, 218. 

Robinson Crusoe, 59. 

Rockingham, N. C, 8. 

Romney, 207. 

Rushville, 74. 

Same Old Story Told Again, quoted, 220. 

Saxhorn Band, 159. 

Say Farewell and Let Me Go, 308. 

Say Something to Me, 298. 

Schoolboy Silhouettes, 48, 51, 59. 

Schoolmaster and Songmaster, 62. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 6, 64. 

Shelbyville, 82. 

Shower, The, 233, 274. 

Silent Victors, 295, 353. 

Singing Pilgrims, The, 209-10. 

Skinner, J. J., 197. 

Snow, Tom, 70, 96-102. 

Some Observations on Decoration Day, 353. 

Song of Parting, 298. 

Spencer, Herbert, 35. 

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 384. 

Stockford and Blowney Co., 143. 

Stony Creek, 7, 12, 14. 

Story of Life in the Woods, 45. 

Strange Young Man, motif, 87, 186. 

Summer Afternoon, 225. 

Swing, David, 80. 

Tailholt, 79. 



INDEX 425 



Tales of the Ocean, 34. 

Tanglewood Tales, influence on Riley, 87. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 13. 

Test of Love, 339. 

Thanksgiving Day at Henchley's, quoted, 359. 

Tharpe's Pond, 24, 45, 61. 

That Little Dorg, 225. 

Thompson, Maurice, 315. 

Thornburg, William A., 10. 

Tilt the Cup, quoted, 169. 

Tom Johnson's Quit, 155. 

To the Judge, 185. 

Townsend, James B., 212-14. 

Tradin' Joe, 226. 

Transfigured, quoted, 72. 

Tress of Hair, 298. 

Trillpipe's Boy on Spiders, 339. 

Tune, quoted, 158. 

Twain, Mark, 4, 58, 62, 70, 81, 88, 125, 172, 314, 412. 

Unawangawawa, 339. 
Union City, 197. 
Unionport, 14. 
Upper Sandusky, 204-05. 

Vision of Summer, quoted, 274, 324. 

Walden Pond, 45. 

Walton, Ike, 274. 

Wash Lowry's Reminiscence, 339. 

Watterson, Henry, 353. 

Wayne County, 9. 

When My Dreams Come True, 294. 

Whitcomb, James, 21, 30. 

White Man's Flood, 1, 5. 

Whitmore, Mrs. H. E., 127. 

Whitmore, James, 145. 

Wilfer, Rumty, 69. 

Willard, Archibald, painter, 83. 

Willie, or Prior to Miss Belle's Appearance, 354. 

Windsor, 12. 

Wordsworth, 27. 

Wrangdillion t 339. 



3V77-9 



